•4m<i-'mi.m}^ 



jcation 

ACCORDING TO SOME 
MODERN MASTERS 



m^i-m^' 



fm 









H- 



^i^. 









mm;. 



mS' 



CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING 




Book 1-M . 

Copyright "N" 



CDEffilGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRESIDENT THWING'S 
BOOKS ON COLLEGE SUBJECTS: 

American Colleges: Their Students and Work. 

Within CoUege Walls. 

The College Woman. 

The American College in American Life. 

College Administration. 

If I Were a College Student. 

The Choice of a College. 

A Liberal Education and a Liberal Faith. 

College Training and the Business Man. 

A History of Higher Education in America. 

Education in the Far East. 

History of Education in the United States Since 
the Civil War. 

Universities of the World. 

Letters from a Father to His Son Entering Col- 
lege. 

Letters from a Father to His Daughter Entering 
College. 

The Co-Ordinate System in the Higher Educa- 
tion. 

The American College: What It Is and What It 

May Become. 
Education According to Some Modern Masters. 



EDUCATION 

ACCORDING TO SOME 
MODERN MASTERS 



BY 
CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING 

PRESIDENT OF WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 
AND ADELBERT COLLEGE 



THE PLATT & PECK CO, 



3 



Copyright, 1916. by 
THE PLATT & PECK CO, 






G)CI,A44633.i 



PREFATOEY NOTE 

TT^DUCATION is in peril of losing its human 
-■— ^ touch. Important as technical means, meth- 
ods and conditions are, there is a belief, and a dan- 
ger, too, that these elements may take to themselves 
an importance not fundamentally belonging to 
them. In the desire to emphasize the large human 
relations, I have made these interpretations of the 
educational masters who, first and last, are human- 
ists. Being great humanists, they have tried to see 
education, as they have tried to see other great 
himaan forces, in its relations. In my turn, I have 
simply tried to interpret and properly to relate 
their utterances. 

It is my present hope to make a similar inter- 
pretation of the Greek and Latin masters and of 
the medieval. For, each age indeed should have a 
voice, moving and quickening for every other age 
of the race and of the races of man. 

0. F. T. 

Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Emerson 1 

II. Carlyle 38 

III. RusKiN 74 

IV. John Stuart Mill 131 

V. Gladstone 179 

VI. Matthew Arnold 196 

VII. John Henry Newman 221 

VIII. Goethe 251 

IX. Summary and Conclusion 279 

Index 293 



EDUCATION ACCORDING TO 
SOME MODERN MASTERS 



EDUCATION ACCORDING TO EMERSON 

SCIENCE, knowledge, the scholar, the intellect, 
as well as education, are the great terms under 
which Emerson presents his thoughts regarding 
our central subject. Little does it signify which of 
the quintette of words is used. For, science and 
knowledge are the materials of which education 
makes avail, and by the use of which the intellect 
creates the scholar. The scholar represents the 
force in education who, in turn, is himself the prod- 
uct of education. In this personality called the 
scholar, the intellect is the chief part, guiding, in- 
spiring, by its own might enlarging itself and all 
that it approaches. Education, in turn, commands 
science and all knowledge as its tool and content, 
disciplining the intellect, creating the scholar. Of 
aU the words of the quintette education is the term 
most germinal, fundamental and comprehensive. 
In Emerson's presentation of this great unit 



2 EDUCATION 

composed of diverse elements, education is not 
found as an orderly process. It is not seen as an 
art, much less as a science. Its nature is inter- 
preted with aptness, grandeur and inspiring im- 
pressiveness, but is not definitely articulated. Its 
purposes, and in turn its effects, are indicated with 
fullness, diversity and weight, not at all with 
scholarly orderliness. Its methods are outlined 
and its forces made known, but not in sequence. 
Its conditions and limitations are drawn up with 
philosophical comprehensiveness, breadth, depth 
and height, but the presentation lacks precision. 

We may thank God that the educational gospel 
of Emerson is as it is, and that it is not scholastic. 
It is life, and life, although lived under recognized 
principles, is not subject to prescription. Emer- 
son's idea of education calls up picturesque visions 
of the Concord meadows. His thought wanders 
on quietly like the Concord River, and its reflection 
of forest and field, of horizon and zenith, suggests 
the Concord landscapes. 

Emerson's own education gives a prophetic inti- 
mation of the variety of his interpretation of the 
forms and forces of education. The regular course 
of Harvard College, which he entered in 1817, did 
not command his attention, and he left, after pur- 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 3 

suing it for four years, feeling, in the words of 
James Elliot Cabot, his biographer, 

that the college had done little for him. He found there but 
little nutriment suited to his appetite, and strayed off, though 
with some misgivings, to other pastures. In one of his jour- 
nals long afterwards, he speaks of "the instinct which leads 
the youth who has no faculty for mathematics, and weeps over 
the impossible Analytical Geometry, to console his defeats with 
Chaucer and Montaigne, with Plutarch and Plato at night." 
. . . ''The boy at college apologizes for not learning the tutor's 
tasks, and tries to learn them ; but stronger nature gives him 
Otway and Massinger to read, or betrays him into a stroll to 
Mount Auburn, in study hours. The poor boy, instead of 
thanking the gods and slighting the mathematical tutor, ducks 
before the functionary, and poisons his fine pleasures by a 
perpetual penance." 

In his own way he was iadustrious; feeling vaguely that, 
for him, power of expression was more important than philo- 
logical or scientific training. 

Of his college standing Mr. Cabot says : 

The rest of the course (except mathematics) he passed 
through without discredit though without distinction, and 
came out somewhat above the middle of his class in college 
rank. 

And he adds : 

It may be doubted whether under any system he would 
have been a student of books. It was not in his nature; he 



4 EDUCATION 

could never, he said in after years, deal with other people's 
facts and he never made the attempt.^ 

The subject to be educated, according to Emer- 
son, is man, and this man is a youth. Youth in turn 
is in part a temporary thing, and is only in part to 
be interpreted in terms of manhood, of interest, of 
responsiveness, of contagious and absorbing en- 
thusiasms and of immortal hilarity. 

Education, according to Emerson, is to be under- 
stood, not through formal definition, but through 
consideration of its purposes and effects, its meth- 
ods, forces, conditions and values. Without giving 
a formal definition himself, he adopts the great 
definition of John Milton. He holds that in all 
English literature there is no '^more noble outline 
of a wise external education than that v^hich he 
[Milton] drew up, at the age of thirty-six, in his 
Letter to Samuel Hartlib."^ 

The college, in giving education, deals at once 
with truth and personality. It has ^'to teach you 
geometry, or the lovely laws of space and figure; 
chemistry, botany, zoology, the streaming of 
thought into form, and the precipitation of atoms 

* " A Memoir of Kalph Waldo Emerson, ' ' James Elliot Cabot, Hough- 
ton, Mifflin and Co., Vol. I, pp. 56, 57. 

'"Milton," Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Houghton, 
Mifflin and Co., Centenary Edition, Vol. XII., p. 256. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 5 

which Nature is."^ But education is also per- 
sonal. It is 

the happy meeting of the young soul, filled with the desire, 
with the living teacher who has already made the passage 
from the centre forth, step by step, along the intellectual roads 
to the theory and practice of special science. Now if there 
be genius in the scholar, that is, a delicate sensibility to the 
laws of the world, and the power to express them again in 
some new form, he is made to find his own way. He will 
greet joyfully the wise teacher, but colleges and teachers are 
no wise essential to him; he will fijid teachers everywhere.* 

The lower purpose of education is the object of 
ridicule by Mr. Emerson. The ground is alto- 
gether too common of which he makes fun. It is 
said that 

the people have the power, and if they are not instructed to 
sympathize with the intelligent, reading, trading and gov- 
erning class; inspired with a taste for the same competitions 
and prizes, they will upset the fair pageant of Judicature, and 
perhaps lay a hand on the sacred muniments of wealth itself, 
and new distribute the land.*^ 

And a still lower purpose may prevail. One 

will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will 
hear that the first duty is to get land and money, place and 

« ' ' The Celebration of Intellect, ' ' Complete Works, etc., Ibid., p. 127. 

*Ihid., p. 128. 

' ' ' The Conservative, ' ' Complete Works, etc.. Vol. I., p. 320. 



6 EDUCATION 

name, * ' What is this Truth you seek ? what is this Beauty 1 ' ' 
men will ask, with derision. If nevertheless God have called 
any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be 
true. When you shall say, ''As others do, so will I: I re- 
nounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the 
good of the land and let learning and romantic expectations 
go, until a more convenient season;" — then dies the man in 
you ; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and 
science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand 
men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history, 
and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. It is 
this domineering temper of the sensual world that creates 
the extreme need of the priests of science ; and it is the office 
and right of the intellect to make and not take its estimate.* 

No such reasoning has value with this philoso- 
pher who is at once transcendental and experi- 
mental. The education which a man receives is re- 
creation of the man, or at least a confirmation of 
the original creation in which he was made. 

Humanly speaking, the school, the college, society, make the 
difference between men. All the fairy tales of Aladdin or the 
invisible Gyges or the talisman that opens Kings' palaces or 
the enchanted halls underground or in the sea, are only fic- 
tions to indicate the one miracle of intellectual enlargement. 
When a man stupid becomes a man inspired, when one and 
the same man passes out of the torpid into the perceiving 
state, leaves the din of trifles, the stupor of the senses, to 
enter into the quasi-omniscience of high thought, — up and 

""Literary Ethics/' Complete Works, etc., Ibid., p. 185. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 7 

down, around, all limits disappear. No horizon shuts down. 
He sees things in their causes, all facts in their connection.'' 

The scholar, as I have intimated, is the force in 
education and also its fruit. His function is a 
great and precious one. 

The scholar, when he comes, will be known by an energy 
that will animate all who see him. The labor of ambition and 
avarice will appear fumbling beside his. In the right hands, 
literature is not resorted to as a consolation, and by the 
broken and decayed, but as a decalogue. In this country 
we are fond of results and of short ways to them; and most 
in this department. In our experiences, learning is not 
learned, nor is genius wise. The name of the Scholar is 
taken in vain. We who should be the channel of that un- 
weariable Power which never sleeps, must give our diligence 
no holidays. Other men are planting and building, baking 
and tanning, running and sailing, heaving and carrying, each 
that he may peacefully execute the fine function by which 
they all are helped. Shall he play, whilst their eyes follow 
him from far with reverence, attributing to him the delving 
in great fields of thought, and conversing with supernatural 
allies? If he is not kindling his torch or collecting oil, he 
will fear to go by a workshop; he will not dare to hear the 
music of a saw or plane ; the steam-engine will reprimand, the 
steam-pipe will hiss at him; he cannot look a blacksmith in 
the eye ; in the field he will be shamed by mowers and reapers. 
The speculative man, the scholar, is the right hero. He is 
brave, because he sees the omnipotence of that which in- 
spires him. Is there only one courage and one warfare? I 

'** Education,^' Complete Works, etc., Vol. X., p. 126. 



8 EDUCATION 

cannot manage sword and rifle; can I not therefore be 
brave? I thought there were as many courages as men. Is 
an armed man the only hero? Is a man only the breech of 
a gun or the haft or a bowie-knife ? Men of thought fail in 
fighting down malignity, because they wear other armor than 
their own. Let them decline henceforward foreign methods 
and foreign courages. Let them do that which they can do. 
Let them fight by their strength, not by their weakness. It 
seems to me that the thoughtful man needs no armor but 
this — concentration.* 

The scholar also has a special function in minis- 
tering to the joy of life. Emerson says : 

I think the peculiar office of scholars in a careful and 
gloomy generation is to be (as the poets were called in the 
Middle Ages) Professors of the Joyous Science, detectors and 
delineators of occult symmetries and unpublished beauties; 
heralds of civility, nobility, learning and wisdom; affirmers 
of the one law, yet as those who should affirm it in music 
and dancing; expressors themselves of that firm and cheer- 
ful temper, infinitely removed from sadness, which reigns 
through the kingdoms of chemistry, vegetation and animal 
Hfe. Every natural power exhilarates ; a true talent delights 
the possessor first. A celebrated musician was wont to say, 
that men knew not how much more he delighted himself with 
his playing than he did others ; for if they knew, his hearers 
would rather demand of him than give him a reward. The 
scholar is here to fill others with love and courage by con- 
firming their trust in the love and wisdom which are at the 
heart of all things ; to affirm noble sentiments ; to hear them 
•"The Scholar," Complete Works, etc., Ibid., pp. 273-74. 



ACCOEDING TO EMERSON 9 

wherever spoken, out of the deeps of ages, out of the obscuri- 
ties of barbarous life, and to republish them : — to untune no- 
body, but to draw all men after the truth, and to keep men 
spiritual and sweet.^ 

In the broadest way, the scholar, at once the 
subject and the force of education, 

is here to be the beholder of the real ; self-centred amidst the 
superficial; here to revere the dominion of a serene necessity 
and be its pupil and apprentice by tracing everything home 
to a cause; here to be sobered, not by the cares of life, as 
men say, no, but by the depth of his draughts of the cup of 
immortality.^^ 

The scholar is both the thinker and the expositor. 
He represents true wisdom. He reveals, and he is 
able to reveal, because he is a learner. Being a 
thinker and revealer, he is a master. He embodies 
the Napoleonic command. Bearing the yoke in his 
youth, enduring toil as a good soldier, he is able 
through obedience to become a first-rate com- 
mander. He unites in himself the two poles of 
reason and common sense. Lacking reason, his 
philosophy is utilitarian ; lacking common sense, it 
becomes too vague for life's uses. 

Happy is the lot of the scholar in this new world. 

'Ibid., p. 262. 
"Ifcid., p. 264. 



10 EDUCATION 

In an address given at Dartmouth College in the 
year 1838, Mr. Emerson said : 

I have reached the middle age of man ; yet I believe I am 
not less glad or sanguine at the meeting of scholars, than 
when, a boy, I first saw the graduates of my own College 
assembled at their anniversary. Neither years nor books have 
yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that 
a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency 
of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him 
directly into the holy ground where other men's aspirations 
only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy 
to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. 
His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages. 
And because the scholar by every thought he thinks extends 
his dominion into the general mind of men, he is not one, 
but many. The few scholars in each country, whose genius 
I know, seem to me not individuals, but societies ; and when 
events occur of great import, I count over these representa- 
tives of opinion, whom they will affect, as if I were counting 
nations. And even if his results were incommunicable; if 
they abode in his own spirit; the intellect hath somewhat so 
sacred in its possessions that the fact of his existence and 
pursuits would be a happy omen." 

Although happy, the scholar in America is not 
to sit down in listless idleness. 

Here you are set down, scholars and idealists, as in a bar- 
barous age; amidst insanity, to calm and guide it; amidst 
fools and blind, to see the right done; among violent pro- 

"' ^Literary Ethics," Complete Works, etc., Vol. I., p. 155. 



ACCORDING TO EMEESON 11 

prietors, to check self-interest, stone-blind and stone-deaf, by- 
considerations of humanity to the workman and to his child ; 
amongst angry politicians swelling with self-esteem, pledged 
to parties, pledged to clients, you are to make valid the large 
considerations of equity and good sense; under bad govern- 
ments to force on them, by your persistence, good laws. 
Around that immovable persistency of yours, statesmen, leg- 
islatures, must revolve, denying you, but not less forced to 
obey.^^ 

In this educational process, all forces, even the 
whole world itself, educates. The teachers are 
found in earth, air, sky and sea, as well as in 
humanity itself. 

We have many teachers; we are in this world for culture, 
to be instructed in realities, in the laws of moral and intelli- 
gent nature ; and our education is not conducted by toys and 
luxuries, but by austere and rugged masters, by poverty, soli- 
tude, passions. War, Slavery ; to know that Paradise is under 
the shadow of swords; that divine sentiments which are al- 
ways soliciting us are breathed into us from on high, and 
are an offset to a Universe of suffering and crime ; that self- 
reliance, the height and perfection of man, is reliance on 
God.^^ To breathe, to sleep, is wonderful. But never to 
know the Cause, the Giver, and infer his character and will! 
Of what import this vacant sky, these puffing elements, these 
insignificant lives full of selfish loves and quarrels and ennui ? 
Everything is prospective, and man is to live hereafter. 

"''Progress of Culture," Complete Works, etc.. Vol. VIII., p. 230. 
""The Fugitive Slave Law," Complete Works, etc., Vol. XI., p. 236. 



12 EDUCATION 

That the world is for his education is the only sane solution 
of the enigma.^* 

The force, however, that does really educate is 
the teacher, the man teaching. The highest char- 
acter makes the most worthy instructor. Person- 
ality is the chief value. The communication of 
character is more than the communication of 
formal truth. In many places and under diverse 
forms does Mr. Emerson inculcate this great prin- 
ciple. 

The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he 
can communicate himself he can teach, but not by words. 
He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There 
is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state 
or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; 
he is you and you are he ; then is a teaching, and by no un- 
friendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the 
benefit. But your propositions run out of one ear as they 
ran in at the other. We see it advertised that Mr. Grand 
will deliver an oration on the Fourth of July, and Mr. Hand 
before the Mechanics' Association, and we do not go thither, 
because we know that these gentlemen will not communicate 
their own character and experience to the company. If we 
had reason to expect such a confidence we should go through 
all inconvenience and opposition. The sick would be car- 
ried in litters. But a public oration is an escapade, a non- 

" ' ' Immortality, ' ' Complete Works, etc., Vol. VIII., p. 334, 



ACCORDING TO EMEESON" 13 

commital, an apology, a gag, and not a communication, not 
a speech, not a man.^^ 

The man who thus teaches is a scholar, and the 
scholar is to have resources. In his first great ora- 
tion, Emerson interprets with detail the resources 
of the American scholar, which consist, he says, of 
nature, of the past and of action. These resources 
are primarily resources of the intellect. As he 
says, in the college address of 1838, 

The resources of the scholar are proportioned to his con- 
fidence in the attributes of the Intellect. The resources of 
the scholar are coextensive with nature and truth, yet can 
never be his unless claimed by him with an equal greatness 
of mind. He cannot know them until he has beheld with 
awe the iafinitude and impersonality of the intellectual power. 
When he has seen that it is not his, nor any man's, but that 
it is the soul which made the world, and that it is all acces- 
sible to him, he will know that he, as its minister, may right- 
fully hold all things subordinate and answerable to it. A 
divine pilgrim in nature, all thiags attend his steps. Over 
him stream the flying constellations; over him streams Time, 
as they, scarcely divided into months and years. He inhales 
the year as a vapor: its fragrant midsummer breath, its 
sparkling January heaven. And so pass into his mind, in 
bright transfiguration, the grand events of history, to take 
a new order and scale from him. He is the world; and the 
epochs and heroes of chronology are pictorial images, in 
which his thoughts are told. There is no event but sprung 

"* 'Spiritual Laws," Complete Works, etc., Vol. II., p. 152. 



14 EDUCATION 

somewhere from the soul of man; and therefore there is 
none but the soul of man can interpret.^*' 

These resources increase, too, with the growth of 
the intellect. The scholar's treasures are not to be 
slight. A larger receptiveness stands for increas- 
ing power. Its development is a history of alter- 
nating expansions and concentrations. Such 
growth means the augmentation of the power of 
the teacher and of education. 

But it is ever to be remembered that the teacher 
is an individual, a person. The teacher is to be 
his own individual self. Imitation and counterfeit 
are weaknesses. He says : 

I advise teachers to cherish mother-wit. I eissume that 
you will keep the grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic 
in order; 't is easy and of course you will. But smuggle in 
a little contraband wit, fancy, imagination, thought. If you 
have a taste which you have suppressed because it is not 
shared by those about you, tell them that. Set this law up, 
whatever becomes of the rules of the school: they must not 
whisper, much less talk ; but if one of the young people says 
a wise thing, greet it, and let all the children clap their hands. 
They shall have no book but school-books in the room; but 
if one has brought in a Plutarch or Shakspeare or Don Quixote 
or Goldsmith or any other good book, and understands what 
he reads, put him at once at the head of the class. Nobody 
shall be disorderly, or leave his desk without permission, but 
" ' ' Literary Ethics, ' ' Complete Works, etc.. Vol. I., p. 158. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 15 

if a boy runs from his bench, or a girl, because the fire falls, 
or to check some injury that a little dastard is inflicting be- 
hind his desk on some helpless suiferer, take away the medal 
from the head of the class and give it on the instant to the 
brave rescuer. If a child happens to show that he knows any 
fact about astronomy, or plants, or birds, or rocks, or his- 
tory, that interests him and you, hush all the classes and 
encourage him to tell it so that all may hear.^^ 

But this individuality on the part of the teacher 
is never to overcome the individuality on the part 
of the student. To respect that student, his per- 
sonality, even his idiosyncrasies, is a primary pur- 
pose. 

Let us wait and see what is this new creation, of what 
new organ the great Spirit had need when it incarnated 
this new Will. A new Adam in the garden, he is to name 
all the beasts in the field, all the gods in the sky. And 
jealous provision seems to have been made in his constitu- 
tion that you shall not invade and contaminate him with 
the worn weeds of your language and opinions. The charm 
of life is this variety of genius, these contrasts and flavors 
by which Heaven has modulated the identity of truth, and 
there is a perpetual hankering to violate this individuality, 
to warp his ways of thinking and behavior to resemble or 
reflect your thinking and behavior. A low self-love in the 
parent desires that his child should repeat his character and 
fortune; an expectation which the child, if justice is done 
him, will nobly disappoint. By working on the theory that 

"''Education," Complete Works, etc., Vol. X., p. 157. 



16 EDUCATION 

this resemblance exists, we shall do what in us lies to defeat 
his proper promise and produce the ordinary and mediocre. I 
suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior 
imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a 
young soul to which they are totally unfit. Can not we let 
people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You 
are trying to make that man another you. One's enough. 

Or we sacrifice the genius of the pupil, the unknown pos- 
sibilities of his nature, to a neat and safe uniformity, as 
the Turks whitewash the costly mosaics of ancient art which 
the Greeks left on their temple walls. Eather let us have 
men whose manhood is only the continuation of their boy- 
hood, natural characters still; such are able and fertile for 
heroic action; and not that sad spectacle with which we are 
too familiar, educated eyes in uneducated bodies.^® 

In further interpretation, Mr. Emerson says, in 
reference to this supreme respect for the student : 

It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he 
shall do. It is chosen and foreordained, and he only holds 
the key to his own secret. By your tampering and thwarting 
and too much governing he may be hindered from his end 
and kept out of his own. Respect the child. Wait and see the 
new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repe- 
titions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Tres- 
pass not on his solitude.^^ 

In this whole educational process, education is 
not simply of the inferior by the superior, but of 

^'Ibid., p. 137. 
" Ibid., p. 143. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 17 

the equal by the equal. Boys educate boys. The 
education of the playing-fields may be quite as good 
as that of the classroom. 

This unmanliness is so common a result of our half-educa- 
tion, — teaching a youth Latin and metaphysics and history, 
and neglecting to give him the rough training of a boy, — 
allowing him to skulk from the games of ball and skates and 
coasting down the hills on his sled, and whatever else would 
lead him and keep him on even terms with boys, so that he 
can meet them as an equal, and lead in his turn, — that I 
wish his guardians to consider that they are thus preparing 
him to play a contemptible part when he is full-grown. In 
England they send the most delicate and protected child 
from his luxurious home to learn to rough it with boys in 
the public schools. A few bruises and scratches will do him 
no harm if he has thereby learned not to be afraid. It is 
this wise mixture of good drill in Latin grammar with good 
drill in cricket, boating and wrestling, that is the boast of 
English education, and of high importance to the matter in 
hand.^^ . . . You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 't is 
the schoolboys who educate him. You send him to the 
Latin class, but much of his tuition comes, on his way to 
school, from the shop-windows. You like the strict rules and 
the long terms; and he finds his best leading in a by-way 
of his own, and refuses any companions but of his own choos- 
ing. He hates the grammar and Gradus, and loves guns, 
fishing-rods, horses and boats. Well, the boy is right, and you 
are not fit to direct his bringing-up if your theory leaves 
out his gymnastic training. Archery, cricket, gun and fish- 
ing-rod, horse and boat, are all educators, liberalizers ; and so 
"'^Eloquence,'' Complete Works, etc., Vol. VIIL, p. 128. 



18 EDUCATION 

are dancing, dress and the street talk ; and provided only the 
boy has resources, and is of a noble and ingenuous strain, 
these will not serve him less than the books.^^ 



But among the forces and causes of education 
one force and cause demands special recognition. 
It is religion. Eeligion, a mighty force itself, is to 
be intellectual, and, being intellectual, it is pri- 
marily concerned with education. 

The religion which is to guide and fulfil the present and 
coming ages, whatever else it be, must be intellectual. The 
scientific mind must have a faith which is science. "There 
are two things,*' said Mahomet, ''which I abhor, the learned 
in his infidelities, and the fool in his devotions." Our times 
are impatient of both, and specially of the last. Let us 
have nothing now which is not its own evidence. There is 
surely enough for the heart and imagination in the religion 
itself. Let us not be pestered with assertions and half-truths, 
with emotion and snuffle. ^^ 

The value of religion as an educator is reflected 
in the history of Concord itself. In an address 
given at the opening of the Concord Public Li- 
brary, Emerson said : 

A deep religious sentiment is, in all times, an inspirer of 
the intellect, and that was not wanting here. The town was 

«''The Conduct of Life: Culture," Complete Works, etc., Vol. VI., 
p. 142. 

« ' ' The Conduct of Life : Worship, ' ' Complete Works, etc., Ibid., p. 240, 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 19 

settled by a pious company of non-conformists from England, 
and the printed books of their pastor and leader, Rev. Peter 
Bulkeley, sometime fellow of Saint John's College in Cam- 
bridge, England, testify the ardent sentiment which they 
shared. ''There is no people," said he to his little flock of 
exiles, ''but will strive to excel in something. "What can 
we excel in if not in holiness? If we look to number, we are 
the fewest; if to strength, we are the weakest; if to wealth 
and riches, we are the poorest of all the people of God through 
the whole world. We cannot excel, nor so much as equal 
other people in these things, and if we come short in grace 
and holiness too, we are the most despicable people under 
heaven. Strive we therefore herein to excel, and suffer not 
this crown to be taken away from us. ' ' ^^ 

In respect to the special studies which contribute 
to education, Mr. Emerson has little to say. Of 
science, he has a far higher opinion as an educa- 
tional force than of the ancient classics. These 
classics had small value to him in his college career, 
and of the sciences he knew experimentally little 
or nothing. But he did know them as a philoso- 
pher. At considerable length, Mr. Emerson depre- 
ciates the value of Latin and Greek as a foundation 
in the American schools and colleges. He says : 

The popular education has been taxed with a want of truth 
and nature. It was complained that an education to things 
was not given. We are students of words: we are shut up 

"Address at the opening of the Concord Free Public Library, Com- 
plete Works, etc., Vol. XI., p. 497. 



20 EDUCATION 

in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fif- 
teen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory 
of words, and do not know a thing. We cannot use our 
hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not 
know an edible root in the woods, we cannot tell our course by 
the stars, nor the hour of the day by the sun. It is well if 
we can swim and skate. We are afraid of a horse, of a cow, 
of a dog, of a snake, of a spider. The Roman rule was to 
teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing. The 
old English rule was, "All summer in the field, and all 
winter in the study. ' ' And it seems as if a man should learn 
to plant, or to fish, or to hunt, that he might secure his sub- 
sistence at all events, and not be painful to his friends and 
fellow-men. The lessons of science should be experimental 
also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all 
the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in 
the elbow outvalues all the theories; the taste of the nitrous 
oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than vol- 
umes of chemistry. 

One of the traits of the new spirit is the inquisition it 
fixed on our scholastic devotion to the dead languages. The 
ancient languages, with great beauty of structure, contain 
wonderful remains of genius, which draw, and always w^ill 
draw, certain like-minded men, — Greek men, and Roman men, 
— ^in all countries, to their study ; but by a wonderful drowsi- 
ness of usage they had exacted the study of all men. Once 
(say two centuries ago), Latin and Greek had a strict re- 
lation to all the science and culture there was in Europe, 
and the Mathematics had a momentary importance at some 
era of activity in physical science. These things became stere- 
otyped as education, as the manner of men is. But the Good 
Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and 



ACCORDING TO EMEESON 21 

boys were now drilled in Latin, Greek and Mathematics, it 
had quite left these shells high and dry on the beach, and 
was now creating and feeding other matters at other ends 
of the world. But in a hundred high schools and colleges this 
warfare against common-sense still goes on. Four, or six, or 
ten years, the pupil is parsing Greek and Latin, and as soon 
as he leaves the University, as it is ludicrously styled, he 
shuts those books for the last time. Some thousands of 
young men are graduated at our colleges in this country 
every year, and the persons who, at forty years, still read 
Greek, can all be counted on your hand. I never met with 
ten. Four or five persons I have seen who read Plato. 

But is not this absurd, that the whole liberal talent of this 
country should be directed in its best years on studies which 
lead to nothing? What was the consequence? Some intelli- 
gent persons said or thought, ''Is that Greek and Latin some 
spell to conjure with, and not words of reason? If the 
physician, the lawyer, the divine, never use it to come at 
their ends, I need never learn it to come at mine. Conjuring 
is gone out of fashion, and I will omit this conjugating, and 
go straight to affairs." So they jumped the Greek and Latin, 
and read law, medicine, or sermons, without it. To the aston- 
ishment of all, the self-made men took even ground at once 
with the oldest of the regular graduates, and in a few months 
the most conservative circles of Boston and New York had 
quite forgotten who of their gownsmen was college-bred, and 
who was not.^* 

But in his ^^ English Traits," Mr. Emerson 
considered and to a degree approved of quite a 

"''New England Reformers," Complete Works, etc., Vol. III., pp. 
257-60. 



22 EDUCATION" 

different interpretation of the ancient classics. 
He writes: 

The effect of this drill is the radical knowledge of Greek and 
Latin and of mathematics, and the solidity and taste of Eng- 
lish criticism. Whatever luck there may be in this or that 
award, an Eton captain can write Latin longs and shorts, 
can turn the Court-Guide into hexameters, and it is certain 
that a Senior Classic can quote correctly from the Corpus 
Poetarum and is critically learned in all the humanities. 
Greek erudition exists on the Isis and Cam, whether the Maud 
man or the Brasenose man be properly ranked or not; the 
atmosphere is loaded with Greek learning ; the whole river has 
reached a certain height, and kills all that growth of weeds 
which this Castalian water kills. The English nature takes 
culture kindly. So Milton thought. It refines the Norseman. 
Access to the Greek mind lifts his standard of taste. He has 
enough to think of, and, unless of an impulsive nature, is 
indisposed from writing or speaking, by the fulness of his 
mind and the new severity of his taste. The great silent crowd 
of thoroughbred Grecians always known to be around him, 
the English writer cannot ignore. They prune his orations 
and point his pen. Hence the style and tone of English jour- 
nalism. The men have learned accuracy and comprehension, 
logic, and pace, or speed of working. They have bottom, en- 
durance, wind. When bom with good constitutions, they 
make those eupeptic studying-mills, the cast-iron men, the 
dura ilia, whose powers of performance compare with ours 
as the steam-hammer with the music-box ; — Cokes, Mansfields, 
Seldens and Bentleys, and when it happens that a superior 
train puts a rider on this admirable horse, we obtain those 



ACCORDING TO EMEESON 23 

masters of the world who combine the highest energy in af- 
faii^ with a supreme culture. ^^ 

In his interpretation of the great theme, Mr. 
Emerson alludes again and again, and under divers 
conditions, to the relationship, or lack of relation- 
ship, between intellect and character. He uses 
character in the narrow sense as standing for 
moral manhood and also in the comprehensive 
sense as standing for the whole of manhood, includ- 
ing will, conscience, heart, as well as intellect. He 
usually, however, uses character in the narrow 
sense and often makes the relationship between 
character and intellect one of contrast. In his 
Journal for 1844, at the age of forty, he says : 

Pure intellect is the pure de\'il when you have got off 
all the masks of Mephistopheles.^^ 

And also, in the year preceding, he says : 

The Intellect sees by moral obedience.^^ 

In character, even in the narrow sense, he in- 
cludes not only all the cardinal virtues, but also the 
cardinal graces. In a striking paragraph repre- 

^ ' ' English Traits, ' ' Complete Works, etc., Vol. V., pp. 206-08. 

2« Journal XXXV., Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Ed- 
ward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes. Houghton, Mifflin 
Co., 1911. Vol. VI., p. 497. 

^^ Journal XXXIV., Journals, etc., IMd., p. 483. 



24 EDUCATIOIsr 

senting both the unity and the diversity in the im- 
pression which the soul makes on character, he 
says: 

Cliaracter repudiates intellect, yet excites it ; and character 
passes into thought, is published so, and then is ashamed 
before new flashes of moral worth. ^^ 

In a large way, he declares : 

This is the law of moral and of mental gain. The simple 
rise as by specific levity not iato a particular virtue, but 
into the region of all the virtues. They are in the spirit which 
contains them all. The soul requires purity, but purity is 
not it ; requires justice, but justice is not that ; requires benef- 
icence, but is somewhat better ; so that there is a kind of de- 
scent and accommodation felt when we leave speaking of 
moral nature to urge a virtue which it enjoins. To the well- 
bom child all the virtues are natural, and not painfully 
acquired. Speak to his heart, and the man becomes sud- 
denly virtuous. 

Within the same sentiment is the germ of intellectual 
growth, which obeys the same law.^^ 

In speaking of the relationship between Shake- 
speare and Swedenborg, he says : 

The human mind stands ever in perplexity, demanding in- 
tellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally of each with- 
out the other.^° 

^''Character," Complete Works, etc., Vol. III., p. 105. 
» ' ' The Over-Soul, ' ' Complete Works, etc.. Vol. II., p. 275. 
'" * ' Eepresentative Men: Swedenborg, " Complete Works, etc., VoL 
IV., p. 94. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 25 

And yet the intellect and the character, which 
are so diversely contrasted, are closely knit and 
intimately related. In speaking on Webster he 
lays down the principle that ^^ great thoughts come 
from the heart," and uses the happy phrases 
** moral sensibility,"^^ *^ moral perception," ^* moral 
sentiment. "^^ Passages are these which suggest 
Pascal's great phrase: 

The heart has its reasons that the reason knows not of. 

He also declares : 

There is an intimate interdependence of intellect and mor- 
als. Given the equality of two intellects, — which will form 
the most reliable judgments, the good, or the bad hearted? 
* ' The heart has its arguments, with which the understanding 
is not acquainted.'* For the heart is at once aware of the 
state of health or disease, which is the controlling state, that 
is, of sanity or of insanity ; prior of course to all question of 
the ingenuity of arguments, the amount of facts, or the ele- 
gance of rhetoric. So intimate is this alliance of mind and 
heart, that talent uniformly sinks with character.^^ 

In his *^ Natural History of Intellect," he further 
declares : 

"^''The Fugitive Slave Law ' '—Lecture at New York. Complete 
Works, etc., Vol. XI., p. 223. 

''lUd., p. 205. 

*"*<The Conduct of Life: Worship," Complete Works, etc., Vol. VI., 
H. 217. 



26 EDUCATION 

The spiritual power of man is twofold, mind and heart, 
Intellect and morals ; one respecting truth, the other the will. 
One is the man, the other the woman in spiritual nature. 
One is power, the other is love. These elements always coexist 
in every normal individual, but one predominates.^* 

He closes one of Ms papers in the Dial on *^Tlie 
Tragic,'' with the remark: 

The intellect in its purity and the moral sense in its purity 
are not distinguished from each other, and both ravish us 
into a region whereunto these passionate clouds of sorrow 
cannot rise.^^ 

The nature of the education which thus unites 
character and intellect is broad. He declares : 

Education should be as broad as man. Whatever elements 
are in him that should foster and demonstrate. If he be dex- 
terous, his tuition should make it appear; if he be capable of 
dividing men by the trenchant sword of his thought, educa- 
tion should unsheathe and sharpen it; if he is one to cement 
society by his all-reconciling affinities, oh! hasten their ac- 
tion ! If he is jovial, if he is mercurial, if he is great-hearted, 
a cunning artificer, a strong commander, a potent ally, in- 
genious, useful, elegant, witty, prophet, diviner, — ^society has 
need of all these. The imagination must be addressed. Why 
always coast on the surface and never open the interior of 
Nature, not by science, which is surface still, but by poetry? 

'""Natural History of Intellect," Complete Works, etc., Vol. XII., 
p. 60. 

"^Papers from the Dial: "The Tragic," Complete Works, etc., Ibid,, 
p. 417. 



ACCOEDING TO EMERSON 27 

IS not the Vast an element of the mind ? Yet what teaching, 
what book of this day appeals to the Vast? 

Our culture has truckled to the times, — to the senses. It 
is not manworthy. If the vast and the spiritual are omitted, 
so are the practical and the moral. It does not make us 
brave or free. "We teach boys to be such men as we are. We 
do not teach them to aspire to be all they can. We do not 
give them a training as if we believed in their noble nature.^® 

This breadth of education, however, should be 
made perfectly consistent with two great elements : 
the element of drill and the element of inspiration. 
Inspiration without drill is vapid. Drill without 
inspiration is dull, phlegmatic. Both combined 
produce the worthy scholar and man. 

If he have this twofold goodness, — the driU and the inspira- 
tion, — then he has health ; then he is a whole, and not a frag- 
ment; and the perfection of his endowment will appear in 
his compositions. Indeed, this twofold merit characterizes 
ever the productions of great masters. The man of genius 
should occupy the whole space between God or pure mind 
and the multitude of uneducated men. He must draw from 
the infinite Reason, on one side; and he must penetrate into 
the heart and sense of the crowd, on the other. From one, 
he must draw his strength; to the other, he must owe his 
aim. The one yokes him to the real ; the other, to the appar- 
ent. At one pole is Reason ; at the other. Common Sense. If 
he be defective at either extreme of the scale, his philosophy 

«"' Education, '* Complete Works, etc., Vol. X., p. 134. 



28 EDUCATION 

will seem low and utilitarian, or it will appear too vague 
and indefinite for the uses of life.^^ 

Toil is the essence of drill, and from it no man is 
to seek excuse. Great scholars, great thinkers, are 
great laborers. The long and insistent song of the 
worth of labor for the student, Emerson sings in 
prose and verse. He says : 

No way has been found for making heroism easy, even for 
the scholar. Labor, iron labor, is for him. The world was 
created as an audience for him ; the atoms of which it is made 
are opportunities. Read the performance of Bentley, of Gib- 
bon, of Cuvier, Geoff roy Saint-Hilaire, Laplace. "He can 
toil terribly, *' said Cecil of Sir Walter Raleigh. These few 
words sting and bite and lash us when we are frivolous. Let 
us get out of the way of their blows by making them true 
of ourselves. There is so much to be done that we ought to 
begin quicMy to bestir ourselves. This day-labor of ours, 
we confess, has hitherto a certain emblematic air, like the 
annual ploughing and sowing of the Emperor of China. Let 
us make it an honest sweat. Let the scholar measure his 
valor by his power to cope with intellectual giants. Leave 
others to count votes and calculate stocks.^* 

In this drill and inspiration, the student must 
seek solitude. Companionship is not for him. His 
lamp he himself lights. Its rays shine upon his 
book alone. Emerson always thought of himself as 

"^'Literary Ethics," Complete Works, etc., Vol. L, p. 182. 
^''Greatness," Complete Works, etc., Vol. VIII., p. 311. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 29 

a man apart, as a spectator and auditor, as one not- 
able to join in other men's sports or labors. Out 
of bis own experiences, be writes : 

He must embrace solitude as a bride. He must have his 
glees and bis glooms alone. His own estimate must be meas- 
ure enough, his own praise reward enough for him. And 
why must the student be solitary and silent? That he may 
become acquainted with his thoughts. If he pines in a 
lonely place, hankering for the crowd, for display, he is not 
in the lonely place; his heart is in the market; he does not 
see; he does not hear; he does not think. But go cherish 
your soul; expel companions; set your habits to a life of 
solitude ; then will the faculties rise fair and full within, like 
forest trees and field flowers; you will have results, which, 
when you meet your fellow-men, you can communicate, and 
they will gladly receive. Do not go into solitude only that 
you may presently come into public. Such solitude denies it- 
self ; is public and stale. The public can get public experience, 
but they wish the scholar to replace to them those private, 
sincere, diviue experiences of which they have been defrauded 
by dwelling in the street. It is the noble, manlike, just 
thought, which is the superiority demanded of you, and not 
crowds but solitude confers this elevation. Not insulation 
of place, but independence of spirit is essential, and it is 
only as the garden, the cottage, the forest and the rock, are 
a sort of mechanical aids to this, that they are of value. 
Think alone, and all places are friendly and sacred.^^ 

Tbe qualities of the education which man thus 
receives are not hard to deduce. His scholarship 

^''Literary Ethics,'' Complete Works, etc.. Vol. I., p. 173. 



30 EDUCATION 

has to represent accuracy. He does not go to the 
scientists for his justification and confirmation, but 
rather to the philosophers. 

Accuracy is essential to beauty. The very definition of 
the intellect is Aristotle's: "that by which we know terms 
or boundaries." Give a boy accurate perceptions. Teach 
him the difference between the similar and the same. Make 
him call things by their right names. Pardon in him no 
blunder. Then he will give you solid satisfaction as long as 
he lives. It is better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin 
grammar than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because they 
require exactitude of performance; it is made certain that 
the lesson is mastered, and that power of performance is 
worth more than the knowledge.*^ 

In this growing education of the student, it is 
not to be forgotten that development requires time. 
Since Emerson himself was a schoolboy, two years 
have been saved in the ordinary education of the 
schoolboy, but time still remains an essential condi- 
tion. It cannot do anything. It is no agent, as 
Lord Bacon says, but it is a necessary condition for 
doing. Nature seems to deceive us in making us 
believe that time is not necessary for growth, but 
the deception is very bare-faced. 

In the year 1841, at the age of thirty-eight, 
Emerson writes in his journal: 

« ''Education/' Complete Works, etc., Vol. X., p. 147. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 31 

It seems to me sometimes that we get our education ended 
a little too quick in this country. As soon as we have learned 
to read and write and cipher, we are dismissed from school 
and we set up for ourselves. We are writers and leaders of 
opinion and we write away without check of any kind, play 
whatsoever mad prank, indulge whatever spleen, or oddity, 
or obstinacy, comes into our dear head, and even feed our 
complacency thereon, and thus fine wits come to nothing, as 
good horses spoil themselves by running away and straining 
themselves. I cannot help seeing that Doctor Channing 
would have been a much greater writer had he found a strict 
tribunal of writers, a graduated intellectual empire estab- 
lished in the land, and knew that bad logic would not pass, 
and that the most severe exaction was to be made on all who 
enter these lists. Now, if a man can write a paragraph for 
a newspaper, next year he writes what he calls a history, 
and reckons himself a classic incontinently, nor will his con- 
temporaries in critical Journal or Review question his claims. 
It is very easy to reach the degree of culture that prevails 
around us; very hard to pass it, and Doctor Channing, had 
he found Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge and Lamb around 
him, would as easily have been severe with himself and risen 
a degree higher as he has stood where he is. I mean, of 
course, a genuine intellectual tribunal, not a literary junto 
of Edinburgh wits, or dull conventions of Quarterly or Gen- 
tleman's Reviews. Somebody offers to teach me mathematics. 
I would fain learn. The man is right. I wish that the 
writers of this country would begin where they now end 
their culture.*^ 

" Journal XXXII., Journals of, etc.. Vol. VI., p. 105. 



32 EDUCATION 

In many paragraphs and pages, as I have inti- 
mated, the great educationist seeks to interpret the 
manifold processes of education. Throughout the 
volumes allusions abound as to the value and to the 
general results of education. But interpretation 
still more specific is fitting. 

The intellect as standing for education gives 
freedom. Emerson agrees with Saint Paul and 
with Jesus Christ in the belief that truth makes 
free. No hard and fast decree rests upon the edu- 
cated man. 

Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free. 
And though nothing is more disgusting than the crowing 
about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mis- 
taking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declara- 
tion of Independence or the statute right to vote, by those 
who have never dared to think or to act, — ^yet it is wholesome 
to man to look not at Fate, but the other way: the practical 
view is the other. His sound relation to these facts is to 
use and command, not to cringe to them.*^ 

The trained mind has also imagination. 

For we thus enter a new gymnasium, and learn to choose 
men by their truest marks, taught, with Plato, ''to choose 
those who can, without aid from the eyes or any other sense, 
proceed to truth and to being. ' ' Foremost among these activi- 
ties are the summersaults, spells and resurrections wrought 

*»''The Conduct of Life: Fate,'' Complete Works, etc.. Vol. VI., 
p. 23. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 33 

by the imagination. "When this wakes, a man seems to mul- 
tiply ten times or a thousand times his force. It opens the 
delicious sense of indeterminate size and inspires an auda- 
cious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gun- 
powder, and a sentence in a book, or a word dropped in 
conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are 
bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the 
Pit. And this benefit is real because we are entitled to these 
enlargements, and once having passed the bounds shall never 
again be quite the miserable pedants we were.*^ 

The intellect, moreover, is the consoler of man. 

The intellect is a consoler, which delights in detaching or 
putting an interval between a man and his fortune, and so 
converts the sufferer into a spectator and his pain into 
poetry. It yields the joys of conversation, of letters and of 
science. Hence also the torments of life become tuneful trag- 
edy, solemn and soft with music, and garnished with rich 
dark pictures.** 

The intellect represents one element of the essen- 
tial greatness of humanity. In a noble passage on 
greatness, he says : 

It is easy to draw traits from Napoleon, who was not gen- 
erous nor just, but was intellectual and knew the law of 
things. Napoleon commands our respect by his enormous self- 
trust, the habit of seeing with his own eyes, never the surface, 

" ' ' Eepresentative Men : Uses of Great Men, ' ^ Complete Works, etc., 
Vol. IV., p. 17. 

** Papers from the Dial: ''The Tragic, '^ Complete Works, etc.. Vol. 
XII., p. 416. 



34 EDUCATION 

but to the heart of the matter, whether it was a road, a can- 
non, a character, an officer, or a king, — and by the speed and 
security of his action in the premises, always new. He has 
left a library of manuscripts, a multitude of sayings, every 
one of widest application. He was a man who always fell 
on his feet. When one of his favorite schemes missed, he had 
the faculty of taking up his genius, as he said, and of carry- 
ing it somewhere else. ''Whatever they may tell you, believe 
that one fights with cannon as with fists; when once the fire 
is begun, the least want of ammunition renders what you 
have done already useless." I find it easy to translate all 
his technics into all of mine, and his official advices are to 
me more literary and philosophical than the memoirs of the 
Academy. His advice to his brother. King Joseph of Spain, 
was : ' ' I have only one counsel for you, — Be Master.' ' Depth 
of intellect relieves even the ink of crime with a fringe of 
light.*'^ 

The value of the higher education, Mr. Emerson 
says, is in certain ways imaginary and in others 
real. One seldom meets a great man who has not 
gone to college who does not lament what he has 
missed, and one seldom meets a great man who has 
been in college who is not inclined to depreciate the 
worth of what the college was to him. Both ideas 
are equally true and equally false. The college 
ought to have made the college man abler, not mak- 
ing him less human ; and not going to college, if it 
has served to bring out the natural forces of the 

«'' Greatness, " Complete Works, etc., Vol. VIII., p. 314. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 35 

other man, might also have brought them out in 
unfitting ways and unto unworthy results. Mr. 
Emerson says : 

We are full of superstitions. Each class fixes its eyes on 
the advantages it has not ; the refined, on rude strength ; the 
democrat, on birth and breeding. One of the benefits of a 
college education is to show the boy its little avail. I knew a 
leading man in a leading city, who, having set his heart on 
an education at the university and missed it, could never 
quite feel himself the equal of his own brothers who had 
gone thither. His easy superiority to multitudes of pro- 
fessional men could never quite countervail to him this imag- 
inary defect. Balls, riding, wine-parties and billiards pass to 
a poor boy for something fine and romantic, which they are 
not; and a free admission to them on an equal footing, if 
it were possible, only once or twice, would be worth ten 
times its cost, by undeceiving him.*® 

In his essay on ' ^ Spiritual Laws, ' ' he also writes : 

My will never gave the images in my mind the rank they 
now take. The regular course of studies, the years of aca- 
demical and professional education have not yielded me bet- 
ter facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin 
School. "What we do not call education is more precious than 
that which we call so. We form no guess, at the time of re- 
ceiving a thought, of its comparative value. And education 
often wastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk this 
natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it.*^ 

" ' ' The Conduct of Life : Culture, ' ' Complete Works, etc., Vol. VI., 
p. 144. 

*^*' Spiritual Laws," Complete Works, etc., Vol. II., p. 133. 



36 EDUCATION 

But, when all is said and done, the argument as 
to value rests in favor of the college. The college 
may not do much for the genius ; but for the com- 
mon man its worth is tremendous. Genius is shy, 
hard to catch, does not easily lend itself to associa- 
tion. The college represents a collection, an assem- 
bly, of men each drawn to the other, each in a 
sense educating the other. The college may not 
train genius, but it can adorn genius and adorn it 
with beauty. 

This, then, is the theory of Education, the happy meeting 
of the young soul, filled with the desire, with the living teacher 
who has already made the passage from the centre forth, 
step by step, along the intellectual roads to the theory and 
practice of special science. Now if there be genius in the 
scholar, that is, a delicate sensibility to the laws of the 
world, and the power to express them again in some new 
form, he is made to find his own way. He will greet joy- 
fully the wise teacher, but colleges and teachers are no wise 
essential to him; he will find teachers everywhere.*^ 

In summing up the advantages and disadvan- 
tages of the college in Mr. Emerson's judgment, 
one cannot do better than to quote the concluding 
passage from English Traits on the Universities. 
It is said : 

♦"''The Celebration of Intellect,^* Complete Works, etc., Vol. XII., 
p. 128. 



ACCORDING TO EMERSON 37 

Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, see- 
ing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as 
churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints. Yet we 
all send our sons to college, and though he be a genius, the 
youth must take his chance. The university must be retro- 
spective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all 
its towers blows out of antiquity. Oxford is a library, and 
the professors must be librarians. And I should as soon think 
of quarrelling with the janitor for not magnifying his office 
by hostile sallies into the street, like the Governor of Kertch 
or Kinburn, as of quarrelling with the professors for not 
admiring the young neologists who pluck the beards of Euclid 
and Aristotle, or for not attempting themselves to fill their 
vacant shelves as original writers. 

It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if we will 
wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, 
but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of 
Commons. It is rare, precarious, eccentric and darkling. 
England is the land of mixture and surprise, and when you 
have settled it that the universities are moribund, out comes 
a poetic influence from the heart of Oxford, to mould the 
opinions of cities, to build their houses as simply as birds 
their nests, to give veracity to art and charm mankind, as 
an appeal to moral order always must. But besides this 
restorative genius, the best poetry of England of this age, in 
the old forms, comes from two graduates at Cambridge.'*^ 

*»** English Traits, Universities," Complete Works, etc., Vol. V., p. 
212. 



II 

EDUCATION ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 

CARLYLE was a great spirit. His books are 
the chief or only exponents of his greatness 
and spirituality. Like many other great souls he 
was a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions. 
He was at once a pessimist and an optimist ; in his 
tastes a democrat, in his theories an aristocrat; 
commending silence, but giving us monologues in 
many volumes ; an incarnation of great power, in- 
tellectual and emotional, but irritated by the com- 
mon pains and penalties of life ; a Scotchman who 
most strenuously promoted the doctrine of the real, 
the great, the good. The strong man, the hero, 
whether in literature or in history, represented his 
supreme human idol. 

Carlyle's thoughts about education, scattered 
throughout the eight thousand pages of his twenty 
voliunes, are, however, far more consistent and 
more free from contradictions, in a realm of 
thought where consistency and freedom from con- 
tradiction are seldom found, than one would be in- 
clined to believe. 

38 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 39 

The subject of education is man. And who and 
what is man? He is not, according to Carlyle's in- 
terpretation, a worm of the dust, nor is he a but- 
terfly of beautiful existence ; rather he is the child 
of God, a creature born into an infinite universe 
and destined for an eternal existence. For him the 
centuries have labored, through him all the past is 
given to the future, and to him all the future is 
bound in behalf of its worthy creatures yet to be. 
No prize is too high for his struggle, and no train- 
ing is too severe for this child of the gods, this 
brother of the immortals. For him too, this crea- 
ture of origin so noble, of destiny so sublime, no 
education is too enriching. With Platonic mys- 
ticism, Carlyle interprets the subject of education. 

''To the eye of vulgar Logic," says he, ''what is man? 
An omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches. To the eye of 
Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a Spirit, and diviae Ap- 
parition. Round his mysterious Me, there lies, under all 
those wool-rags, a garment of Flesh (or of Senses), contex- 
tured in the Loom of Heaven; whereby he is revealed to 
his like, and dwells with them in Union and Division; and 
sees and fashions for himself a Universe, with azure Starry 
Spaces, and long Thousands of Years. Deep-hidden is he 
under that strange Garment; amid Sounds and Colors and 
Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably over-shrouded : 
yet it is sky- woven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not 
thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eterni- 



40 EDUCATION 

ties? He feels; power has been given him to know, to be- 
lieve; nay does not the spirit of Love, free in its celestial 
primeval brightness, even here, though but for moments, look 
through ? Well said Saint Chrysostom, with his lips of gold, 
'the true Shekinah is Man:' where else is the God's-Pres- 
ENCE manifested not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as 
in our fellow-man ? " ^ 

Such is Carlyle's perception, according to Ms 
autobiography, ' ' Sartor Resartus, ' ' of the man who 
is to be educated. Man is thus made only a little 
lower than the gods and is crowned with glory and 
honor. 

In man the chief though not the only power to be 
educated is the intellect. The intellect is the fount 
and origin of other forces and excellences. It is 
that part of man which is capable of the highest 
improvement. At birth it is the weakest faculty in 
man, weaker than it is in the animal. It grows 
apace, develops, and becomes united with the will, 
the ruler of the created world. Man's capabilities, 
the root of which is intellect, are infinite. Instinct 
has no like capacity for improvement. It is as per- 
fect at birth as in age. Intellect is intrinsically the 
noblest part of man's being. Of this man of intel- 
lect Carlyle says : 

* * * Sartor Eesartus, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. I., p. 50. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 41 

... A man of Intellect, of real and not sham Intellect, is 
by the nature of him likewise inevitably a man of nobleness, 
a man of courage, rectitude, pious stren^h; who, even he- 
cause he is and has been loyal to the Laws of this Universe, 
is initiated into discernment of the same; to this hour a 
Missioned of Heaven; whom if men follow, it will be well 
with them; whom if men do not follow, it will not be well. 
Human Intellect, if you consider it well, is the exact summary 
of Human Worth; and the essence of all worth-ships and wor- 
ships is reverence for that same.^ 

The lack of this element of intellect produces 
grievous evils, and of these are many kinds ; per- 
haps the chief of them being a lack of wisdom. 
But education acting upon the intellect serves to 
correct this primary quality and element. It cre- 
ates wisdom. 

Wisdom has been defined by Burke as the ap- 
plication of knowledge to affairs. Solomon also 
has given many definitions still well worth consid- 
ering. Of this superb quality and of the man who 
embodies it Carlyle says : 

The wise man; the man with the gift of method, of faith- 
fulness and valor, all of which are of the basis of wisdom; 
who has insight into what is what, iato what will follow out 
of what, the eye to see and the hand to do; who is fit to 
administer, to direct, and guidingly command: he is the 

'"Latter-Day Pamphlets,'' Edition de Luxe, Estes &> Lauriat, VoL 
II., p. 358. 



42 EDUCATION 

strong man. His muscles and bones are no stronger than 
ours; but his soul is stronger, his soul is wiser, clearer, — is 
better and nobler, for that is, has been and ever will be the 
root of all clearness worthy of such a name. Beautiful it is, 
and a gleam from the same eternal pole-star visible amid the 
destinies of men, that all talent, all intellect is in the first 
place moral; — what a world were this otherwise! But it 
is the heart always that sees, before the head can see : let us 
know that; and know therefore that the Good alone is death- 
less and victorious, that Hope is sure and steadfast, in all 
phases of this "Place of Hope/'^ 

It was many years after Carlyle wrote the essay 
on ** Chartism'' from which this quotation is taken 
that he was chosen rector of the University of 
Edinburgh. At the time of his installation he gave 
the most famous of all his addresses — and his ad- 
dresses were few, be it said — which teems with 
advice to the students to whom he spoke. At this 
time, too, he referred to wisdom. 

You are ever to bear in miad that there lies behind that 
the acquisition of what may be called wisdom; — namely, 
sound appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that 
come round you, and the habit of behaviug with justice, can- 
dor, clear insight and loyal adherence to fact. Great is wis- 
dom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exag- 
gerated; it is the highest achievement of man: "Blessed is 
he that getteth understanding. ' ' * 

»**Chartism,'^ Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., p. 63. 

*** Inaugural Address,'* Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., 
p. 404. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 43 

The wisdom to which the master refers is wisdom 
in the sense of Solomon. It refers to excellence 
both intellectual and moral. It stands for an in- 
tellect which sees truth clearly, accurately, largely, 
comprehensively and in its sjonmetry. It also re- 
fers to a heart of which the emotions are pure and 
to a will of which the choices are right. It repre- 
sents the Greek ideal of the true, the good, and the 
beautiful. The Greek, the Hebrew and the Scotch 
meet in the interpretation and commendation of 
the great virtue. 

For securing this most excellent thing, two meth- 
ods at least are specially provided. The first is the 
university. But in the quest of wisdom it may 
itself fail. Of such failure there is no lack of con- 
viction in the pages of Carlyle, and especially in 
^^ Sartor Resartus.'^ He is indeed free in cursing 
and heaping ridicule upon the university. He 
makes the writer of the ^^ Volume on Clothes'' say; 

**Tlie hungry young . . . looked up to their spiritual 
Nurses; and, for food, were bidden eat the east- wind. What 
vain jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and me- 
chanical Manipulation falsely named Science, was current 
there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than the most. Among 
eleven hundred Christian youths, there will not be wanting 
some eleven eager to learn. By collision with such, a certain 
warmth, a certain polish was communicated; by instinct and 



44 EDUCATION 

happy accident, I took less to rioting (renammiren) , than 
to thinking and reading, which latter also I was free to do. 
Nay from the chaos of that Library, I succeeded in fishing 
up more books perhaps than had been known to the very 
keepers thereof. The foundation of a Literary Life was 
hereby laid : I learned, on my own strength, to read fluently 
in almost all cultivated languages, on almost all subjects and 
sciences; farther, as man is ever the prime object to man, 
already it was my favorite employment to read character in 
speculation, and from the Writing to construe the "Writer. A 
certain groundplan of Human Nature and Life began to 
fashion itself in me; wondrous enough, now when I look 
back on it; for my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, 
was as yet a Machine ! However, such a conscious, recognized 
groundplan, the truest I had, was beginning to be there, and 
by additional experiments might be corrected and indefinitely 
extended."^ 

This bit of autobiography bears on the subjec- 
tivity of Carlyle's interpretation of the university 
experience of his greatest personal hero, Goethe. 
Concerning Goethe's life at Leipzig, he says: 

Leipzig University has the honor of matriculating him. The 
name of his ** propitious mother" she may boast of, but not 
of the reality: alas, in these days, the University of the 
Universe is the only propitious mother of such; all other 
propitious mothers are but unpropitious superannuated dry- 
nurses fallen bedrid, from whom the famished nursling has 
to steal even bread and water, if he will not die; whom for 
most part he soon takes leave of, giving perhaps (as in Gib- 
• ' ' Sartor Resartus, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. I., p. 87. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 45 

bon*s case), for farewell thanks, some rough tweak of the 
nose; and rushes desperate into the wide world an orphan. 
The time is advancing, slower or faster, when the bedrid dry- 
nurse will decease, and be succeeded by a walking and stir- 
ring wet one. Goethe's employments and culture at Leipzig 
lay in quite other groves than the academic: he listened to 
the Ciceronian Ernest i with eagerness, but the life-giving 
word flowed not from his mouth; to th'e sacerdotal, eclectic- 
sentimental Gellert (the divinity of all tea-table moral-phi- 
losophers of both sexes) ; witnessed "the pure soul, the genu- 
ine will of the noble man, ' ' heard ' ' his admonitions, warnings 
and entreaties, uttered in a somewhat hollow and melancholy 
tone;'' and then the Frenchmen say to it all, ^^Ladssez le 
faire; il nous forme des dupes/ ^ "In logic it seemed to 
me very strange that I must now take up those spiritual opera- 
tions which from of old I had executed with the utmost con- 
venience, and tatter them asunder, insulate and as if destroy 
them, that their right employment might become plain to 
me. Of the Thing, of the World, of God, I fancied I knew 
almost about as much as the Doctor himself; and he seemed 
to me, in more than one place, to hobble dreadfully {gewaltig 
zu hapern).^^^ 

This opinion of the worthlessness of universities 
Carlyle expresses in diverse forms and ways. The 
university represents, and it necessarily repre- 
sents, a certain orderliness which was especially 
repugnant to Carlyle. It represents a certain 
amount of team-work which did not receive the 

•*' Goethe's Works," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV., 
p. 47. 



46 EDUCATION 

commendation of the great individualist. Still, 
that in these two diatribes, one directed against 
Leipzig, and the other, without doubt, referring to 
Edinburgh, Carlyle did touch on great evils in 
university administration, is not for one instant to 
be doubted. 

A second and still more important means for 
securing this great result of wisdom is the book. 
Throughout his volumes Carlyle refers to the worth 
of the book. These allusions begin early and con- 
tinue to the end. In the essay on the Hero as Man 
of Letters, he says : 

Do not Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were 
fabled to do? They persuade men. Not the wretchedest cir- 
culating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con in 
remote villages, but will help to regulate the actual practical 
weddings and households of those foolish girls. So ''Celia" 
felt, so "Clifford" acted: the foolish Theorem of Life, 
stamped into those young brains, comes out as a solid Prac- 
tice one day. Consider whether any Rune in the wildest 
imagination of Mythologist ever did such wonders as, on 
the actual firm Earth, some Books have done ! What built 
St. Paul's Cathedral? Look at the heart of the matter, it 
was that divine Hebrew Book, — the word partly of the man 
Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish herds, four thou- 
sand years ago, in the wilderness of Sinai ! It is the strangest 
of things, yet nothing is truer. With the art of Writing, of 
which Printing is a simple, an inevitable and comparatively 
insignificant corollary, the true reign of miracles for man- 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 47 

kind commenced. It related, with a wondrous new contiguity 
and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant with the Pres- 
ent in time and place; all times and all places with this our 
actual Here and Now. All things were altered for men; all 
modes of important work of men: teaching, preaching, gov- 
erning, and all else.'^ 

In his inaugural address Carlyle gives to the 
students sound counsel also in reference to read- 
ing: 

Well, Gentlemen, whatever you may think of these histori- 
cal points, the clearest and most imperative duty lies on 
every one of you to be assiduous in your reading. Learn to 
be good readers, — which is perhaps a more difficult thing 
than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your read- 
ing; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all 
kinds of things which you have a real interest in, a real not 
an imaginary, and which you find to be really fit for what you 
are engaged in. Of course, at the present time, in a great 
deal of the reading incumbent on you, you must be guided 
by the books recommended by your Professors for assistance 
towards the effect of their prelections. And then, when you 
leave the University, and go into studies of your own, you 
will find it very important that you have chosen a field, some 
province specially suited to you, in which you can study and 
work. The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot 
tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut out for 
him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the 

' * * The Hero as Man of Letters, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, 
Vol. I., p. 383. 



48 EDUCATION 

grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset 
mankind, — honest work, which you intend getting done. 

If, in any vacant vague time, you are in a strait as to 
choice of reading, — a very good indication for you, perhaps 
the best you could get, is towards some book you have a 
great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best 
of all possible conditions to improve by that book. It is 
analogous to what doctors tell us about the physical health 
and appetites of the patient. You must learn, however, to 
distinguish between false appetite and true. There is such 
a thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man into vagaries 
with regard to diet ; will tempt him to eat spicy things, which 
he should not eat at all, nor would, but that the things are 
toothsome, and that he is under a momentary baseness of 
mind. A man ought to examine and find out what he really 
and truly has an appetite for, what suits his constitution and 
condition; and that, doctors tell him, is in general the very 
thing he ought to have. And so with books.^ 

To Carlyle the university is a collection of books. 
The man who has read well has received a univer- 
sity education, both as a means and as a result. 

Of such culture and strength, speech has long 
been regarded as the chief sign and symbol. In 
*^ Latter-Day Pamphlets" and in the ** Inaugural 
Address" Carlyle praises silence. He believes that 
the world and everybody in it talks too much. To 
watch the tongue and to watch it unto curbing it is 

* * * Inaugural Address, * ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., 
p. 393. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 49 

a duty. Wind, wind, wind, seems to be universal ; 
it is to be made to vanish so far as can be. He even 
advises that tongues be cut out for a whole gen- 
eration in order that the world may learn wisdom ! 
The reason of all this is that speech is largely 
vanity and emptiness. On the other hand speech 
that is filled with wisdom is ^* noble and even 
divine." If Carlyle has been most vigilant in de- 
nouncing talk that is foolish, he is equally enthusi- 
astic in commending talk that is wise. Even in 
the Latter-Day Pamphlet ^* Stump-Orator," he 
says: 

Considered as the last finish of education, or of human 
culture, worth and acquirement, the art of speech is noble, 
and even divine; it is like the kindling of a Heaven's light 
to show us what a glorious world exists, and has perfected 
itself, in a man.® 

And also in the same essay half -humorously he 
adds: 

Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn 
whither he will for a career, he finds among variable condi- 
tions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That 
the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For 
heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account 
kept: — The English Nation does not need that silent kind, 

•** Latter-Day Pamphlets/* Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. 
IL, p. 426. 



50 EDUCATION 

then, but only the talking kind? Most astonishing. Of all 
the organs a man has, there is none held in account, it would 
appear, but the tongue he uses for talking. Premiership, 
woolsack, mitre, and quasi-crown: all is attainable if you 
can talk with due ability. Everywhere your proof-shot is 
to be a well-fired volley of talk. Contrive to talk well, you 
will get to Heaven, the modern Heaven of the English.^^ 

The result of all education and training is light, 
light upon all of life's problems and on many of 
life's mysteries. 

Light is the one thing wanted for the world. Put wisdom 
in the head of the world, the world will fight its battle vic- 
toriously, and be the best world man can make it.^^ 

In a personal way the result of all this education 
and training is, for the individual man, thinking. 
The education of man unto wisdom is, as I have 
already intimated, inseparable from training in 
morals, and the chief excellence in morals, accord- 
ing to the gospel of Carlyle, is sincerity. Sincerity 
is the culmination of all the cardinal virtues. It is 
comprehensive. Insincere speech is the index of 
insincere action and of all possible evil activities. 
A nimble tongue utters an octavo volume a day 
and this volume is in large part designing balder- 

^'Ibid., p. 431. 

"''Heroes and Hero- Worship, " Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, 
Vol. I., p. 391. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 51 

dash. The insincere man is a bad man, and the bad 
man an insincere one. The great virtue is honesty, 
and the great vice which Carlyle constantly damned 
is hypocrisy. 

Education is designed to promote sincerity and 
honesty : 

For no man, and for no body or biggest multitude of 
men, has Nature favor, if they part company with her facts 
and her. Excellent stump-orator; eloquent parliamentary 
dead-dog, making motions, passing bills ; reported in the Morn- 
ing Newspapers, and reputed the ' ' best speaker going ? ' ' From 
the Universe of Fact he has turned himself away; he is 
gone into partnership with the Universe of Phantasm; finds 
it profitablest to deal in forged notes, while the foolish shop- 
keepers will accept them. Nature for such a man, and for 
Nations that follow such, has her patibulary forks, and prisons 
of death everlasting: — dost thou doubt it? Unhappy mortal, 
Nature otherwise were herself a Chaos and no Cosmos. Na- 
ture was not made by an Impostor; not she, I think, rife as 
they are ! — In fact, by money or otherwise, to the uttermost 
fraction of a calculable and incalculable value, we have, each 
one of us, to settle the exact balance in the above-said Sav- 
ings-bank, or official register kept by Nature: Creditor by 
the quantity of veracities we have done. Debtor by the quan- 
tity of falsities and errors; there is not, by any conceivable 
device, the faintest hope of escape from that issue for one 
of us, nor for all of us.^^ 

"''Latter-Day Pamphlets," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, VoL 
II., p. 449. 



52 EDUCATION 

The most commanding illustration of the effect 
of training in sincerity to be found in Carlyle's 
works is Frederick the Great. 

It is an excellent symptom of his intellect, this of gravi- 
tating irresistibly towards realities. Better symptom of its 
quality (whatever quantity there be of it), human intellect 
cannot show for itself. However it may go with Literature, 
and satisfaction to readers of romantic appetites, this young 
soul promises to become a successful Worker one day, and to 
do something under the Sun. For work is of an extremely 
unfictitious nature ; and no man can roof his house with clouds 
and moonshine, so as to turn the rain from him.^^ 

The vital place of sincerity as a single virtue is 
bespoken in Carlyle's praise of work. Diligence 
and honesty are to him twin sisters ; each promotes 
the welfare of the other. If one great idea be 
more prominent than another in Carlyle, it is the 
idea of the worthiness of work. In the essay on 
* ' Chartism ' ' he says : 

Work is the mission of man in this Earth. A day is ever 
struggling forward, a day will arrive in some approximate 
degree, when he who has no work to do, by whatever name 
he may be named, will not find it good to show himself in 
our quarter of the Solar System; but may go and look out 
elsewhere, If there be any Idle Planet discoverable ? — Let the 
honest working man rejoice that such law, the first of Nature, 

" ' ' Frederick the Great, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. V., 
p. 420. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 53 

has been made good on him; and hope that, by and by, all 
else will be made good. It is the beginning of all.^* 

And also in the essay on ' ' The Nigger Question ' ' : 

This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who 
are bom into this world. To do competent work, to labor 
honestly according to the ability given them ; for that and for 
no other purpose was each one of us sent into this world; 
and woe is to every man who, by friend or by foe, is pre- 
vented from fulfilling this the end of his being.^^ 

In the essay ^'Past and Present" Carlyle de- 
clares : 

All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone 
noble: be that here said and asserted once more. And in 
like manner, too, all dignity is painful; a life of ease is 
not for any man, nor for any god. The life of all gods figures 
itself to us as a Sublime Sadness, — earnestness of Infinite 
Battle against Infinite Labor.^^ 

And also in the same chapter he observes : 

The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself 
with asking much about was, happiness enough to get his 
work done. Not '*I can't eat!" but ''I can't work!" that 
was the burden of all wise complaining among men. It is, 
after all, the one unhappiness of a man. That he cannot 

"*' Chartism, " Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., p. 50. 

"**The Nigger Question," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ihid., 
p. 299. 

"''Past and Present," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XII., 
p. 149. 



54 EDUCATION 

work ; that he cannot get his destiny as a man fulfilled. Be- 
hold, the day is passing swiftly over, our life is passing swiftly 
over ; and the night cometh, wherein no man can work.^^ 

Further he interprets : 

The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epit- 
ome of the man; how much more the done Work. What- 
soever of morality and of intelligence ; what of patience, per- 
severance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy ; 
in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will 
lie written in the Work he does. To work : why, it is to try 
himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; 
these will tell a true verdict as to the man.^^ 

In the chapter in ^^Past and Present" devoted to 
labor, Carlyle proclaims again : 

For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, 
in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high 
calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and ear- 
nestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair. 
Work, never so mammonish, mean, is in communication with 
Nature; the real desire to get Work done will itself lead one 
more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regu- 
lations, which are truth. 

The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and 
do it. ''Know thyself:" long enough has that poor ''self" 
of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to "know" it, 
I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thy- 
self; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou 

" Ibid., p. 152. 
"/did, p. 154. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 55 

canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will 
be thy better plan. 

It has been written, "an endless significance lies in Work;" 
a man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared 
away, fair seedfields rise instead, and stately cities; and 
withal the man himsel- first ceases to be a jungle and foul 
unwholesome desert thereby. Consider how, even in the 
meanest sorts of Labor, the whole soul of a man is com- 
posed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself 
to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, De- 
spair itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul 
of the poor day-worker, as of every man ; but he bends himself 
with free valor against his task, and all these are stilled, all 
these shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is 
now a man. The blessed glow of labor in him, is it not as 
purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and of sour 
smoke itself there is made bright blessed flame !^^ 

In the chapter in ^^Past and Present," already 
referred to, he further says : 

All true work is sacred ; in all true Work, were it but true 
hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as 
the Earth, has its summit in Heaven. Sweat of the brow; 
and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; 
which includes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, 
all Sciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms, Martyrdoms, 
— up to that '* Agony of bloody sweat," which all men have 
called divine! O brother, if this is not ''worship," then I 
say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing 
yet discovered under God's sky. Who art thou that com- 

"* 'Labor," Edition de- Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ihid., p. 190. 



56 EDUCATION 

plainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my 
wearied brother; see thy fellow Workmen there, in God's 
Eternity ; surviving there, they alone surviving ; sacred Band 
of the Immortals, celestial Body-guard of the Empire of 
Mankind.2« 

Such is the interpretation of work which this 
great laborer gives. It is an interpretation re- 
quired in our own age even more fundamentally 
than in the times in which and of which he wrote. 
For the college man of to-day is not laborious. Less 
laborious he is than he was in the days of his 
fathers. He works no more intensely in the hours 
in which he does work, and the hours of his labor 
are fewer. The gospel of indulgence abounds. The 
by-products of the higher education have taken the 
place of the direct. The student values less highly 
the acquiring of mental power and more highly 
the gaining of culture. The honors of the class- 
room have become less precious than the honors 
of the campus. The condition may be painted in 
colors too dark or too bright; but that a change 
has occurred is evident. The time has come indeed 
to put the emphasis in our college courses upon 
hard work ; and a preaching of the gospel of Car- 
lyle is timely. 

"''Past and Present," Edition de Luxe, Bates & Lauriat, Ibid., 
p. 195. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 57 

In Carlyle's scheme of education, if it be a 
scheme at all, religion, as in his scheme of life, fills 
a large place. Carlyle 's religion is not that of the 
kirk. It has no thirty-nine articles. Rather its 
articles are only one, or an infinite number. It 
has a catechism, a long one, so long as to represent 
infinities and eternities. It has no forms — neither 
creed nor catechism. Its church is all out-of-doors. 
Its services are the working of all the powers of 
nature and of man. Its priest is the eternal and 
universal force making not for evil nor for vileness 
nor for damnation, but for righteousness, for sin- 
cerity, and for salvation. Its altar is work, and its 
book of common prayer the desire for truth and 
for power. Its saints are the world's thinkers and 
doers, potent through infinite space and eternal 
time. They are indeed the elect, chosen by the 
forces of divine movements and tendencies. Car- 
lyle's religion rests in the relation which man bears 
to ultimate reality. Its scope is as much greater 
than temporary concerns as eternity is longer than 
time. It creates nations and individuals. 

Carlyle tells the Edinburgh youth that 

No nation which did not contemplate this wonderful uni- 
verse with an awe-stricken and reverential belief that there 



58 EDUCATION 

was a great unknown, omnipotent, and all-wise and all-just Be- 
ing, superintending all men in it, and all interests in it, — no 
nation ever came to very much, nor did any man either, who 
forgot that. If a man did forget that, he forgot the most 
im^portant part of his mission in this world. ^^ 

Carlyle is willing to grant to that form of religion 
called Presbyterianism a large share in the develop- 
ment of his native country. 

Nobody who knows Scotland and Scott can doubt but Pres- 
byterianism too had a vast share in the forming of him. A 
country where the entire people is, or even once has been, 
laid hold of, filled to the heart with an infinite religious idea, 
has * * made a step from which it cannot retrograde. ' ' Thought, 
conscience, the sense that man is denizen of a Universe, crea- 
ture of an Eternity, has penetrated to the remotest cottage, 
to the simplest heart. Beautiful and awful, the feeling of a 
Heavenly Behest, of Duty god-commanded, over-canopies all 
life. There is an inspiration in such a people; one may say 
in a more special sense, "the inspiration of the Almighty giv- 
eth them understanding. ' ' ^^ 

There is also a specific element of religion, which 
our great author commends. It is embodied in the 
word reverence. He follows Goethe in giving a 
high place in the building of character, to this in- 

^ ' ' Inaugural Address, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., 
p. 396. 

="'' Essay on Scott," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV., 
p. 419. 



ACCORDING TO CAELYLE 59 

tellectual and moral virtue. Writing of Goethe's 
works he says : 

To enlighten this principle of reverence for the great, to 
teach us reverence, and whom we are to revere and admire, 
should ever be a chief aim of Education (indeed it is herein 
that instruction properly both begins and ends) ; and in these 
late ages, perhaps more than ever, so indispensable is now 
our need of clear reverence, so inexpressibly poor our supply. 
''Clear reverence!" it was once responded to a seeker of 
light: *'all want it, perhaps thou thyself." What wretched 
idols, of Leeds cloth, stuffed out with bran of one kind or 
other, do men either worship, or being tired of worshipping 
(so expensively without fruit), rend in pieces and kick out 
of doors, amid loud shouting and crowing, what they call 
"tremendous cheers," as if the feat were miraculous! In 
private life, as in public, delusion in this sort does its work; 
the blind leading the blind, both fall into the ditch.^^ 

What method shall be adopted for the teaching 
of this fundamental and all-embracing subject of 
religion I What method shall be adopted for incor- 
porating it as a part of education? That is not 
the question. Rather the question is: What 
method shall be adopted for teaching it as a basic 
principle 1 The problem was given up by Carlyle 
as one he could not solve. The same confession has 
been made by the wise and unwise since his day. 

'•''Goethe's Works/' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., p. 25. 



60 EDUCATION 

With much negative declamation Carlyle says that 
others must solve the problem out of their own 
experience and wisdom. He believes that from the 
life of the English people, dealing with this ques- 
tion through the centuries, may come forth the 
proper answer. 

**And now how teach religion ?'* so asks the indignant 
Ultra-radical, cited above; an Ultra-radical seemingly not 
of the Benthamee species, with whom, though his dialect is 
far different, there are sound Churchmen, we hope, who have 
some fellow-feeling : * ' How teach religion ? ' ' By plying with 
liturgies, catechisms, credos; droning thirty-nine or other ar- 
ticles incessantly into the infant ear? Friends! In that 
case, why not apply to Birmingham, and have Machines made, 
and set up at all street-corners, in highways and by-ways, to 
repeat and vociferate the same, not ceasing night or day? 
The genius of Birmingham is adequate to that. Albertus 
Magnus had a leather man that could articulate ; not to speak 
of Martinus Scriblerus' Niirnberg man that could reason as 
well as we know who! Depend upon it, Birmingham can 
make machines to repeat liturgies and articles ; to do whatso- 
ever feat is mechanical. And what were all schoolmasters, 
nay all priests and churches, compared with this Birmingham 
Iron Church! Votes of two millions in aid of the Church 
were then something. You order, at so many pounds a head, 
so many thousand iron parsons as your grant covers; and 
fix them by satisfactory masonry in all quarters wheresoever 
wanted, to preach there independent of the world. In loud 
thoroughfares, still more in unawakened districts, troubled 
with argumentative infidelity, you make the windpipes wider, 



i 



ACCORDIKG TO CARLYLE 61 

strengthen the main steam-cylinder ; your parson preaches, to 
the due pitch, while you give him coal; and fears no man 
or thing. Here were a ' ' Church-extension ; " to which I, with 
my last penny, did I believe in it, would subscribe.^* 

Yet, as he intimates, the only way to teach reli- 
gion is by experience, by acquaintance with the 
thing itself become incarnate. The method of 
teaching religion is not through religious persons. 
Writing of Frederick the Great he says more fully 
upon this point : 

Piety to God, the nobleness that inspires a human soul to 
struggle Heavenward, cannot be "taught" by the most ex- 
quisite catechisms, or the most industrious preachings and 
drillings. No ; alas, no. Only by far other methods, — chiefly 
by silent continual Example, silently waitiag for the favorable 
mood and moment, and aided then by a kiud of miracle, well 
enough named ''the grace of God," — can that sacred con- 
tagion pass from soul into soul. How much beyond whole 
Libraries of orthodox Theology is, sometimes, the mute action, 
the unconscious look of a father, of a mother, who had in 
them "Devoutness, pious Nobleness!" In whom the young 
soul, not unobservant, though not consciously observing, came 
at length to recognize it ; to read it, in this irrefragable man- 
ner: a seed planted thenceforth in the centre of his holiest 
affections f orevermore ! ^^ 

^''Chartism," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., p. 109. 
^ ' ' Frederick the Great, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. V., 
p. 414. 



62 EDUCATION 

But in the teaching of religion, it is fair to re- 
mark in passing, a distinction is ever to be made 
between religion as a life and religion as a system 
of truth. 

The measures and methods for securing the con- 
sunmaate and comprehensive result of a man, wise, 
sincere, laborious and religious, are many and 
diverse. Interpretations and intimations of these 
ways are scattered up and down these thousands 
of pages. Among the first of them all we find the 
art of teaching itself. Teaching in its highest rela- 
tionship is of greatest value in making the man. 
In teaching, the teacher is of primary importance. 
There are teachers, and there are teachers. In his 
autobiographic essay Carlyle speaks of teachers 
who are not indeed teachers. 

My teachers were hide-bound Pedants, without knowl- 
edge of man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save 
their lexicons and quarterly account-books. Innumerable 
dead Vocables (no dead Language, for they themselves knew 
no Language) they crammed into us, and called it fostering 
the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechanical 
Gerund-grinder, the like of whom will, in a subsequent cen- 
tury, be manufactured, at Niirnberg out of wood and leather, 
foster the growth of anything; much more of Mind, wliich 
grows, not like a vegetable (by having its roots littered with 
etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious con- 



ACCORDING TO CARLTLE 63 

tact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the fire of living 
Thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose own inward 
man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead gram- 
matical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax 
enough; and of the human soul thus much: that it had 
a faculty called Memory, and could be acted on through the 
muscular integument by appliance of birch-rods.^^ 

Yet there is another kind of teacher, of which 
Diderot is the type. In his sketch of the great 
Frenchman, Carlyle, speaking of Diderot's teach- 
ing, says: 

To decipher the talent of a young vague Capability, who 
must one day be a man and a Reality; to take him by the 
hand, and train him to a spiritual trade, and set him up in 
it, with tools, shop and good-will, were doing him in most 
cases an unspeakable service, — on this one proviso, it is true, 
that the trade be a just and honest one; in which proviso 
surely there should lie no hindrance to such service, but 
rather a help.^^ 

To secure the noblest results there must be in the 
teacher at least two qualities beside the quality 
of intelligence or the element of intellect. The first 
is a sense of reality. The sense of reality is the 
reagent of sincerity. This sense the teacher must 



^ ' ' Sartor Eesartus, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. I., p. 81. 
"''Essay on Diderot," Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV., 



p. 93. 



64 EDUCATION 

possess. In writing of Frederick and of his educa- 
tion, Carlyle says: 

Fritz had one unspeakable advantage, rare among princes 
and even ai-iong peasants in these ruined ages: that of not 
being taught, or in general not, by the kind called ''Hypo- 
crites, and even Sincere-Hypocrites," — fatalest species of the 
class Hypocrite. We perceive he was lessoned, all along, not 
by enchanted Phantasms of that dangerous sort, breathing 
mendacity of mind, unconsciously, out of every look; but by 
real Men, who believed from the heart outwards, and were 
daily doing what they taught. To which unspeakable ad- 
vantage we add a second, likewise considerable: That his 
masters, though rigorous, were not unlovable to him; — that 
his affections, at least, were kept alive ; that whatever of seed 
(or of chaff and hail, as was likelier) fell on his mind, had 
sunshine to help in dealing with it.^® 

Thus the second attribute which the teacher 
should possess is affection. He may well be severe, 
but in his severity there should be the element of 
love. Light he is to give, but the light should come 
from the heart quite as much as from the intellect. 
In that beautiful essay entitled '^ Death of Goethe," 
Carlyle says : 

Precious is the new light of Knowledge which our Teacher 
conquers for us; yet small to the new light of Love which 
also we derive from him: the most important element of 

*"*' Frederick the Great/* Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. 
v., p. 376. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 65 

any man's performance is the Life he has accomplished. 
Under the intellectual union of man and man, which works 
by precept, lies a holier union of affection, working by ex- 
ample; the influences of which latter, mystic, deep-reaching, 
all-embracing, can still less be computed. For Love is ever 
the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light ; and works also 
more in the manner of fireP 

This method of education through the teacher 
who is sincere and kind is on the whole to be pre- 
ferred to the method which is referred to in ^' Sartor 
Resartus," the method of '^reading up." 

Teufelsdrockh affirms, in jest: 

*'I have heard affirmed (surely in jest),'' observes he else- 
where, ''by not unphilanthropic persons, that it were a real 
increase of human happiness, could all young men from the 
age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered other- 
wise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies 
and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age 
of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least as considered 
in the light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that 
I nowise coincide. Nevertheless it is plausibly urged that, 
as young ladies (Mddchen) are, to mankind, precisely the 
most delightful in those years; so young gentlemen (Buhchen) 
do then attain their maximum of detestability. Such gawks 
(Gecken) are they, and foolish peacocks, and yet with such 
a vulturous hunger for self-indulgence ; so obstinate, obstrep- 

»* 'Death of Goethe/' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV., 
p. 13. 



66 EDUCATION 

erous, vain-glorious; in all senses, so froward and so for- 
ward. . . /'^« 

Of the specific studies which youth may pursue 
Carlyle has little to say. Negatively he spurns the 
two extremes, science and logic. For these Teuf els* 
drockh has no use. 

"Shall your Science," exclaims he, ''proceed in the small 
chink-lighted, or even oil-lighted, underground workshop of 
Logic alone; and man's mind become an Arithmetical Mill, 
whereof Memory is the Hopper, and mere Tables of Sines 
and Tangents, Codification, and Treatises of what you call 
Political Economy, are the Meal? And what is that Science, 
which the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, and (like 
the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a basin to keep it 
alive, could prosecute without shadow of a heart, — but one 
other of the mechanical and menial handicrafts, for which 
the Scientific Head (having a Soul in it) is too noble an 
organ? I mean that Thought without Reverence is barren, 
perhaps poisonous ; at best, dies like cookery with the day that 
called it forth ; does not live, like sowing, in successive tilths 
and wider-spreading harvests, bringing food and plenteous 
increase to all Time. ' ' ^^ 

But for history as a study in the university his 
enthusiasm is great. No wonder that it is great! 
He tells the Edinburgh students, in the *^ Inaugural 
Address:" 

»" ' ' Sartor Resartus, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. I., p. 98. 
''Ibid., p. 52. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 67 

As applicable to all of you, I will say that it is highly ex- 
pedient to go into History; to inquire into what has passed 
before you on this Earth, and in the Family of Man.^^ 

At greater length too, in a fragment of earlier 
writing, lie says: 

History recommends itself as the most profitable of all 
studies: and truly, for such a being as Man, who is born, 
and has to learn and work, and then after a measured term 
of years to depart, leaviag descendants and performances, 
and so, in all ways, to vindicate himself as vital portion of a 
Mankind, no study could be fitter. History is the Letter of In- 
structions, which the old generations write and posthumously 
transmit to the new; nay it may be called, more generally 
still, the Message, verbal or written, which aU Mankind de- 
livers to every man; it is the only articulate communication 
(when the inarticulate and mute, intelligible or not, lie round 
us and in us, so strangely through every fibre of our being, 
every step of our activity) which the Past can have with the 
Present, the Distant with what is Here. All Books, there- 
fore, were they but Song-books or treatises on Mathematics, 
are in the long-run historical documents — as indeed all Speech 
itself is: thus we might say, History is not only the fittest 
study, but the only study, and includes all others whatsoever. 
The Perfect in History, he who understood, and saw and 
knew within himself, all that the whole Family of Adam had 
hitherto been and hitherto done, were perfect in all learning 
extant or possible ; needed not thenceforth to study any more ; 
had thenceforth nothing left but to he and to do something 

^2 ' ' Inaugural Address, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lariat, Vol. XVL, 
p. 394. 



68 EDUCATION 

himself, that others might make History of it, and learn 
of himP 

Into the large field embraced in the course of 
study of the modern university Carlyle does not 
enter. He was concerned with the sciences as 
applied to nations and to men, but with the sciences 
as a tool of teaching and of forming character he 
had nothing to do. With government — its methods 
and its forms — with sociology — its atmospheres and 
forces — he also was concerned as human forces, 
but with them as with formal disciplines he had 
nothing to do and concerning them no statement 
to make. Of biology, geology or other sciences, of 
national literatures and languages, he likewise had 
nothing to say. But of course it is to be remem- 
bered that Carlyle does not write as the pedagogue 
or educational philosopher. 

Man is, furthermore, educated by his associates, 
his fellow students. The acquisitions and the atti- 
tudes of academic life train him into s^nnmetry 
and efficiency. Writing of Scott, Carlyle says : 

No man lives without jostling and being jostled ; in all ways 
he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiv- 
ing offence. His life is a battle, in so far as it is an entity at 

"* * ' Essay on History, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XV., 

p. 74. 



i 



ACCORDING TO CAELYLE 69 

all. The very oyster, we suppose, comes in collision with 
oysters: undoubtedly enough it does come in collision with 
Necessity and Difficulty; and helps itself through, not as 
a perfect ideal oyster, but as an imperfect real one. Some 
kind of remorse must be known to the oyster : certain hatreds, 
certain pusillanimities.^* 

Writing of his beloved John Sterling he inter- 
prets thus : 

But here, as in his former schools, his studies and inquiries, 
diligently prosecuted I believe, were of the most discursive 
wide-flowing character; not steadily advancing along beaten 
roads towards College honors, but pulsing out with impetu- 
ous irregularity now on this tract, now on that, towards 
whatever spiritual Delphi might promise to unfold the mys- 
tery of this world, and announce to him what was, in our 
new day, the authentic message of the gods. His speculations, 
readings, inferences, glances and conclusions were doubtless 
sufficiently encyclopedic; his grand tutors the multifarious 
set of Books he devoured. And perhaps, — as is the singular 
case in most schools and educational establishments of this 
unexampled epoch, — it was not the express set of arrange- 
ments in this or any extant University that could essentially 
forward him, but only the implied and silent ones; less in 
the prescribed "course of study," which seems to tend no- 
whither, than — if you will consider it — in the generous (not 
ungenerous) rebellion against said prescribed course, and 
the voluntary spirit of endeavor and adventure excited there- 
by, does help lie for a brave youth in such places. Curious to 
consider. The fagging, the illicit boating, and the things 
"^ ' ' Essay on Scott, ' * Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., p. 407. 



70 EDUCATION 

forbidden by the school-master, — these, I often notice in my 
Eton acquaintances, are the things that have done them 
good; these, and not their inconsiderable or considerable 
knowledge of the Greek accidence almost at all! What is 
Greek accidence, compared to Spartan discipline, if it can 
be had? That latter is a real and grand attainment. Cer- 
tainly, if rebellion is unfortunately needful, and you can 
rebel in a generous manner, several things may be acquired 
in that operation, — rigorous mutual fidelity, reticence, stead- 
fastness, mild stoicism, and other virtues far transcending 
your Greek accidence. Nor can the unwisest ''prescribed 
course of study ' ' be considered quite useless, if it have incited 
you to try nobly on all sides for a course of your own. A 
singular condition of Schools and High-schools, which have 
come down, in their strange old clothes and ''courses of 
study," from the monkish ages into this highly unmonkish 
one; — tragical condition, at which the intelligent observer 
makes deep pause ! ^^ 

In '* Latter-Day Pamphlets" too, writing of the 
stump-orator, Carlyle says : 

Especially where many men work together, the very rub- 
bing against one another will grind and polish off their angu- 
larities into roundness, into "politeness" after a sort; and 
the official man, place him how you may, will never want for 
schooling, of extremely various kinds. A first-rate school one 
cannot call this Parliament for him ; — I fear to say what rate 
at present! In so far as it teaches him vigilance, patience, 

"^ ' ' John Sterling, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. II., p. 34. 



ACCORDING TO CARLYLE 71 

courage, toughness of lungs or of soul, and skill in any kind 
of swimming, it is a good school.^^ 

Now the result of all this education through home 
and school and university, in morals and religion, 
in honor and honesty, by teacher and fellow-stu- 
dent, is what? What is the purpose realized? 
What is the achievement, what is the accomplish- 
ment through the years and all the chaos of time 
and labor, of watchfulness and sacrifice, of pain 
and pleasure ? The result is the transformation of 
chaos into cosmos. As Carlyle says in writing of 
Frederick and of Frederick's education: 

To make of the human soul a Cosmos, so far as possible, that 
was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: not to leave the hu- 
man soul a mere Chaos; — how much less a Singing or elo- 
quently Spouting Chaos, which is ten times worse than a 
Chaos left mute, confessedly chaotic and not cosmic! To 
develop the man into doing something; and withal into doing 
it as the Universe and the Eternal Laws require, — which is but 
another name for really doing and not merely seeming to do 
it: — that was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: and it was, 
I can assure you, very far from being a foolish one, though 
there was no Latin in it, and much of Prussian pipe-clay ! ^^ 

" ' * Latter-Day Pamphlets, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, IMd., 
p. 442. 

^ ' ' Frederick the Great, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. V., 
p. 423. 



72 EDUCATION 

The result in its brief form is *'just vision to 
discern, with free force to do." ^^ 

In general and stated at greater length the result 
is: 

A man all lucid, and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear 
mirror geometrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to all ob- 
jects and impressions made on it, and imaging all things 
in their correct proportions; not twisted up into convex or 
concave, and distorting everything, so that he cannot see the 
truth of the matter without endless groping and manipula- 
tion: healthy, clear and free, and discerning truly all 
round him.^® 

At the end of his term of service as rector of the 
University of Edinburgh, Carlyle was asked to de- 
liver a valedictory address. In his acknowledg- 
ment of the invitation, which is a benediction, he 
says: 

Bid them, in my name, if they still love me, fight the 
good fight, and quit themselves like men, in the warfare to 
which they are as if conscript and consecrated, and which 
lies ahead. Tell them to consult the eternal oracles (not 
yet inaudible, nor ever to become so, when worthily in- 
quired of) ; and to disregard, nearly altogether, in compari- 
son, the temporary noises, menacings and deliriums. May 

** ' ' Corn-Law Rhymes, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Vol. XVI., 
p. 126. 

'* * * Inaugural Address, ' ' Edition de Luxe, Estes & Lauriat, Ibid., 
p. 416. 



ACCOEDING TO CARLYLE 73 

they love Wisdom as Wisdom, if she is to yield her treasures, 
must be loved, — piously, valiantly, humbly, bej^ond life it- 
self or the prizes of life, with all one's heart, and all one's 
soul: — in that case (I will say again), and not in any other 
case, it shall be well with them.^° 

Carlyle's note of farewell, a worthy summary 
of all his teaching, is a bugle note of ins|)iration 
to the student and to the world. 

''Ibid., p. 419. 



Ill 

EDUCATION ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 

I LAY down the last of the twenty-six volumes 
of Ruskin with a heart at once ill at ease and 
exultant. Ill at ease it is because of the sadnesses 
of his life, sadnesses born of himself and also of his 
dissatisfaction with his times; exultant because 
here is a man who tried, like Sir Henry Lawrence, 
to do his duty, to see straight and to think clearly, 
who despised cant and meanness, who in his unflag- 
ging courage spoke the thought that was in him and 
incarnated his own creed. His times were out of 
joint. He wanted to set them right and they did 
not care to be set right. He, in later years, spurned 
some important doctrines of his earlier. Rich for 
his wants, he made himself poor on his own land. 
An individualist in his theories of human develop- 
ment, an aristocrat and an autocrat, he was to a 
large extent in his use of his property a communist. 
A great interpreter of art, he became a great inter- 
preter of life. Whether his theories of art, of 
political economy, of social science, of government, 

74 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 75 

be true or false — and many are certainly false — 
he believed them to be true and greatly sacrificed 
for them. 

The interpretations which Ruskin gives of educa- 
tion are manifold, diverse, inconsistent, having 
their origin in a variety of causes and conditions. 
His remarks refer quite entirely to education as it 
belongs to England. Down to the passage of the 
Education Bill of 1870 there was no public educa- 
tion in England. Education was largely a matter 
either of private instruction or of church support 
and control. The renaissance in education which 
began in Prussia under William von Humboldt 
near the close of the Napoleonic wars still awaits 
its co-ordinate quickening among the English peo- 
ple. For the English people have never, until re- 
cent years, taken any proper interest in this great- 
est form of human endeavor. In the half -century 
in which Ruskin worked and wrote that interest was 
still torpid. This lack of interest arose and still 
arises from certain great social conditions. The rise 
of the political democracy has been the cause of the 
growth of the attention paid to the education of 
the people. Therefore, in his view, judging by 
the education with which he was more familiar, 
most of the attempts made were conceived in unrea- 



76 EDUCATION 

son and carried out in unwisdom. For many of 
these endeavors Mr. Ruskin had either scorn or 
contempt and to others he was indifferent. 

It is taken for granted that any education must be good; 
— that the more of it we get, the better; that bad education 
only means little education; and that the worst thing we 
have to fear is getting none. Alas, that is not at all so. 
Getting no education is bj^ no means the worst thiag that 
can happen to us. One of the pleasantest friends I ever 
had in my life was a Savoyard guide, who could only read 
with difficulty, and write, scarcely intelligibly, and by great 
effort. He knew no language but his own — no science, except 
as much practical agriculture as served him to till his fields. 
But he was, without exception, one of the happiest persons, 
and, on the whole, one of the best, I have ever known. . . .^ 

Positively Mr. Ruskin has sung of the evil of 
perverted education in the poem on Christ Church, 
Oxford. Addressing rooms with which he was most 
familiar, he says: 

Ye melancholy chambers ! I could shun 

The darkness of your silence, with such fear, 

As places where slow murder had been done. 

IIow many noble spirits have died here, 

Withering away in yearnings to aspire, 

Gnawed by mocked hope — devoured by their own fire! 

Methinks the grave must feel a colder bed 

To spirits such as these, than unto common dead.^ 

*"Fors Clavigera," Vol. L, Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 42. 
' ' ' Poetry of Architecture, ' ' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 192. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 77 

With a sarcasm which has a touch of bitterness 
he refers also to the evils of the contemporary sys- 
tem of education. He says that modern education 
consists in getting : 

A rascal of an architect to order a rascal of a clerk-of-the- 
works to order a parcel of rascally bricklayers to build you 
a bestially stupid building in the middle of the town, poi- 
soned with gas, and with an iron floor which will drop you 
all through it some frosty evening; wherein you will bring 
a puppet of a cockney lecturer in a dress coat and a white 
tie, to tell you smuggly there s no God, and how many messes 
he can make of a lump of sugar. IMuch the better you are 
for all that, when you get home again, aren 't you ? ^ 

With greater fullness, writing so late as the year 
1883, in the ninety-fourth Letter of Fors, he says : 

And I do not choose to teach (as usually understood) the 
three R's; first, because, as I do choose to teach the elements 
of music, astronomy, botany and zoology, not only the mis- 
tresses and masters capable of teaching these should not waste 
their time on the three R 's ; but the children themselves would 
have no time to spare, nor should they have. If their fathers 
and mothers can read and count, they are the people to teach 
reading and numbering, to earliest intelligent infancy. For 
orphans, or children whose fathers and mothers can't read 
or count, dame schools in every village (best in the alms- 
houses, where there might be dames enow) are all that is 
wanted. 

«''Fors Clavigera," Vol. III., Cahinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 416. 



78 EDUCATION 

Secondly. I do not care that St. George's children, as a 
rule, should learn either reading or writing, because there 
are very few people in this world who get any good by 
either. Broadly and practically, whatever foolish people 
read does them harm, and whatever they write, does other 
people harm: (see my notes on Narrs in general, and my 
own Narr friend in particular, Fors, vol. ii., page 400), and 
nothing can ever prevent this, for a fool attracts folly as 
decayed meat attracts flies, and distils and assimilates it, 
no matter out of what book ; — he can get as much out of the 
Bible as any other, though of course he or she usually reads 
only newspaper or novel.* 

Again, 

Not only do the arts of literature and arithmetic continu- 
ally hinder children in the acquisition of ideas, — but they are 
apt greatly to confuse and encumber the memory of them.*^ 



Also 



But, lastly and chiefly, the personal conceit and ambition 
developed by reading, in minds of selfish activity, lead to the 
disdain of manual labor, and the desire of all sorts of unat- 
tainable things, and fill the streets with discontented and use- 
less persons, seeking some means of living in town society 
by their wits. I need not enlarge on this head; every read- 
er's experience must avow the extent and increasing plague 
of this fermenting imbecility, striving to make for itself what 
it calls a * ' position in life. ' ' ^ 

* Ibid., Vol. IV., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 365. 

• Ibid., p. 368. 
•Ibid., p. 369. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 79 

The simple truth is that education represents a 
discipline which humanity needs and does not want. 
The application of education, therefore, should be 
addressed first to the desires and not to the intel- 
lect. We should discipline the passions and direct 
them. The difficulty of this attempt is great, for 

most men's minds are indeed little better than rough heath 
wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly 
overgrown with pestilent brakes and venomous wind-sown 
herbage of evil surmise; that the first thing you have to do 
for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to 
this; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash heaps, and then 
plow and sow. All the true literary work before you, for 
life, must begin with obedience to that order, ''Break up 
your fallow ground, and saw not among thorns.'''^ 

The education which is thus applied to humanity 
has many characteristics, elements and qualities. 
Its principle — and the principle determines meth- 
ods and means and measures — has relation to the 
great law of heredity, for, as Mr. Ruskin says in 
the last volume of ^^ Modern Painters:" 

The lower orders, and all orders, have to learn that every 
vicious habit and chronic disease communicates itself by de- 
scent; and that by purity of birth the entire system of the 
human body and soul may be gradually elevated, or by reck- 
lessness of birth, degraded; until there shall be as much 

'"Sesame and Lilies," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 52. 



80 EDUCATION 

difference between the well-bred and ill-bred human creature 
(whatever pains be taken with their education) as between 
a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. And the knowl- 
edge of this great fact ought to regulate the education of 
our youth, and the entire conduct of the nation.* 

But under this great law of heredity, a law the 
value of which has become more evident in the 
fifty years since Mr. Ruskin wrote these words, 
there are, at least, three things which the student is 
to learn. They are : 

First. Where he is. 

Secondly. Where he is going. 

Thirdly. What he had best do under those circumstances. 

First. Where he is. — That is to say, what sort of a world 
he has got into; how large it is; what kind of creatures live 
in it, and how ; what it is made of, and what may be made of it. 

Secondly. Where he is going. — That is to say, what chances 
or reports there are of any other world besides this; what 
seems to be the nature of that other world ; and whether, for 
information respecting it, he had better consult the Bible, 
Koran or Council of Trent. 

Thirdly. What he had best do under those circumstances. — 
That is to say, what kind of faculties he possesses ; what are 
the present state and wants of mankind ; what is his place in 
society; and what are the readiest means in his power of 
attaining happiness and diffusing it. The man who knows 
these things, and who has had his will so subdued in the 
learning them, that he is ready to do what he knows he 

* ''Modern Painters," Vol. V., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 332. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 81 

ougiit, I should call educated; and the man who knows them 
not, — uneducated, though he could talk all the tongues of 
Babel. 

Our present European system of so-called education ig- 
nores, or despises, not one, nor the other, but all the three, 
of these great branches of human knowledge.® 

In the division of the three fundamental knowl- 
edges thus outlined, it is evident that one great 
purpose, among others, is to give contentment. 

The most helpful and sacred work, therefore, which can 
at present be done for humanity, is to teach people (chiefly 
by example, as all best teaching must be done) not how ''to 
better themselves," but how to ''satisfy themselves." It is 
the curse of every evil nation and evil creature to eat, and 
not be satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall 
eat and be satisfied. And as there is only one kind of water 
which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread 
which satisfies all hunger, the bread of justice or righteous- 
ness; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, that 
being the bread of Heaven; but hungering after the bread, 
or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that being 
the bread of Sodom. 

And, in order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is nec- 
essary fully to understand the art and joy of humble life, — 
this, at present, of all arts or sciences being the one most 
needing study. Humble life — that is to say, proposing to 
itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance ; not 
excluding the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow, 

" ' ' Stones of Venice, ' ' Vol. III., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 215. 



82 EDUCATION 

and taking no troublous thought for coming days: so, also, 
not excluding the idea of providence, or provision, but wholly 
of accumulation; — the life of domestic affection and domestic 
peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind 
pleasure; — therefore, chiefly to the loveliness of the natural 
world.i^ 

But education means also something more defi- 
nite than contentment. 

It means teaching children to be clean, active, honest and 
useful. All these characters can be taught, and cannot be 
acquired by sickly and ill-dispositioned children without be- 
ing taught; but they can be untaught to any extent, by evil 
habit and example at home. Public schools, in which the aim 
was to form character faithfully, would return them in due 
time to their parents, worth more than their '* weight in 
gold."" 

Education likewise means occupation. 

The employment forms the habits of body and mind, 
and these are the constitution of the man — the greater part 
of his moral or persistent nature, whatever effort, under spe- 
cial excitement, he may make to change or overcome them. 
Employment is the half, and the primal half, of education — 
it is the warp of it; and the fineness or the endurance of all 
subsequently woven pattern depends wholly on its straightness 
and strength. And whatever difficulty there may be in trac- 
ing through past history the remoter connections of event 

*°** Modern Painters," Vol. V., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 411. 

"''Arrows of the Chace," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 310. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 83 

and cause, one chain of sequence is always clear: the for- 
mation, namely, of the character of nations by their employ- 
ments, and the determination of their final fate by their char- 
acter. . . . For a wholesome human employment is the first 
and best method of education, mental as well as bodily. A 
man taught to plough, row or steer w^ell, and a woman taught 
to cook properly and make dresses neatly, are already edu- 
cated in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a 
discipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; 
but the real and noblest function of labor is to prevent crime, 
and not to be Reformatory but Formatory.^^ 

Education is, furthermore, mental exercise or 
cultivation. 

May we not, to begin with, accept this great principle — 
that, as our bodies, to be in health, must be generally exer- 
cised, so our minds, to be in health, must be generally culti- 
vated? You would not call a man healthy who had strong 
arms but was paralytic in his feet; nor one who could walk 
well, but had no use of his hands ; nor one who could see well, 
if he could not hear. You would not voluntarily reduce your 
bodies to any such partially developed state. Much more, 
then, you would not, if you could help it, reduce your minds 
to it. Now, your minds are endowed with a vast number of 
gifts of totally different uses — limbs of mind as it were, 
which, if you don't exercise, you cripple. One is curiosity; 
that is a gift, a capacity of pleasure in knowing; which if 
you destroy, you make yourselves cold and dull. Another is 
sympathy; the power of sharing in the feelings of living 
creatures, which if you destroy, you make yourselves hard and 

^lUd., pp. 318, 322. 



84 EDUCATION 

cruel. Another of your limbs of mind is admiration; the 
power of enjoying beauty or ingenuity, which, if you destroy, 
you make yourselves base and irreverent. Another is wit; or 
the power of playing with the lights on the many sides of 
truth ; which if you destroy, you make yourselves gloomy, and 
less useful and cheering to others than you might be. So 
that in choosing your way of work it should be your aim, as 
far as possible, to bring out all these faculties, as far as they 
exist in you; not one merely, nor another, but all of them. 
And the way to bring them out, is simply to concern your- 
selves attentively with the subjects of each faculty. To cul- 
tivate sympathy you must be among living creatures, and 
thinking about them; and to cultivate admiration, you must 
be among beautiful things and looking at them.^^ 

But education, continuing the definition, is also 
accuracy. 

The entire difference between education and non-education 
(as regards the merely intellectual part of it), consists in this 
accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many 
languages, — may not be able to speak any but his own, — may 
have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, 
he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces he pro- 
nounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the peerage of 
words ; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood at 
a glance, from words of modern canaille ; remembers all their 
ancestry — their intermarriages, distantest relationships, and 
the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, 
among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any 
country. But an uneducated person may know by memory 

"''Two Paths on Art," Cabinet Edition, Daiaa Estes & Co., p. 85. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 85 

any number of langnages, and talk them all, and yet truly 
know not a word of any, — not a word even of his own. An 
ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his 
way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sen- 
tence of any language to be known for an illiterate person: 
so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence 
will ^t once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so 
conclusively admitted by educated persons, that a false accent 
or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any 
civilized nation, to assign to a man $, certain degree of in- 
ferior standing for ever. And this is right; but it is a pity 
that the accuracy insisted on is not greater, and required to a 
serious purpose.^* 

It is to be said further that education represents 
the highest power. 

Believing that all literature and all education are only 
useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and 
therefore kingly, power — first, over ourselves, and, through 
ourselves, over all around us, I am now going to ask you 
to consider with me farther what special portion or kind of 
this royal authority, arising out of noble education, may 
rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are 
called to a true queenly power. Not in their households 
merely, but over all within their sphere. And in what sense, 
if they rightly understood and exercised this royal or gra- 
cious influence, the order and beauty induced by such benig- 
nant power would justify us in speaking of the territories 
over which each of them reigned, as *' Queens' Gardens. "^'* 

""Sesame and Lilies," Cabinet Edition, Da;ia Estes & Co., p. 41. 
« lUd., p. 77. 



86 EDUCATION 

It is to be noted that Mr. Ruskin believes, con- 
trary to the common interpretation, that education 
should be joy ; it should make for gladness, pleasure 
and happiness. 

And in all these phases of education, the main point, you 
observe, is that it should be a beatitude : and that a man should 
learn ^'xatpeiv op^ws": and this rejoicing is above all things 
to be in actual sight ; you have the truth exactly in the say- 
ing of Dante when he is brought before Beatrice, in heaven, 
that his eyes ' ' satisfied themselves for their ten years ' thirst. ' ' 

This, then, I repeat, is the sum of education. All literature, 
art and science are vain, and worse, if they do not enable you 
to be glad; and glad justly. 

And I feel it distinctly my duty, though with solemn and 
true deference to the masters of education in this university, 
to say that I believe our modern methods of teaching, and 
especially the institution of severe and frequent examination, 
to be absolutely opposed to this great end ; and that the result 
of competitive labour in youth is infallibly to make men know 
all they learn wrongly, and hate the habit of learning; so 
that instead of coming to Oxford to rejoice in their work, men 
look forward to the years they are to pass under her teach- 
ing as a deadly agony, from which they are fain to escape, 
and sometimes for their life, must escape, into any method 
of sanitary frivolity.^^ 

Education, furthermore, means governing. 

Educate, or govern, they are one and the same word. Edu- 
cation does not mean teaching people to know what they do 

"''The Eagle's Nest,'' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 402. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 87 

not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not 
behave. And the true "compulsory education" which the 
people now ask of you is not catechism, but drill. It is not 
teaching the youth of England the shapes of letters and the 
tricks of numbers ; and then leaving them to turn their arith- 
metic to roguery, and their literature to lust. It is, on the 
contrary, training them into the perfect exercise and kingly 
continence of their bodies and souls.^^ 

The education of gentlemen has been secured 
largely through two great authors and through 
what they represent and have formed. They are 
Homer and Shakespeare. To these two some 
would add the Bible. 

All Greek gentlemen were educated under Homer. All 
Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and 
French, and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by 
its principles. Of the scope of Shakespeare, I will say only, 
that the intellectual measure of every man since bom, in the 
domains of creative thought, may be assigned to him, accord- 
ing to the degree in which he has been taught by Shakes- 
peare.^^ 

The elements of the education of gentlemen and 
also the elements of all education which the state 
provides should be : 

First. — The body must be made as beautiful and perfect 
in its youth as it can be, wholly irrespective of ulterior pur- 

" ''Crown of Wild Olive, ^' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 422. 
"''Sesame and Lilies," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 117. 



88 EDUCATION 

pose. If you mean afterwards to set the creature to business 
which will degrade its body and shorten its life, first, I should 
say, simply, — you had better let such business alone ; — but if 
you must have it done, somehow, yet let the living creature 
whom you mean to kill, get the full strength of its body first, 
and taste the joy and bear the beauty of youth. After that, 
poison it, if you will. Economically, the arrangement is a 
wiser one, for it will take longer in the killing than if you 
began with it younger; and you will get an excess of work 
out of it which will more than pay for its training. 

Therefore, first teach — as I said in the preface to Unto this 
Last — ''The Laws of Health, and exercises enjoined by 
them ; ' ' and to this end your schools must be in fresh country, 
and amidst fresh air, and have great extents of land attached 
to them in permanent estate. Riding, running, all the hon- 
est personal exercises of offence and defence, and music, 
should be the primal heads of this bodily education. 

Next to these bodily accomplishments, the two great mental 
graces should be taught. Reverence and Compassion : not that 
these are in a literal sense to be "taught," for they are in- 
nate in every well-bom human creature, but they have to 
be developed, exactly as the strength of the body must be, 
by deliberate and constant exercise. I never understood why 
Goethe (in the plan of education in Wilhelm Meister) says 
that reverence is not innate, but must be taught from without ; 
it seems to me so fixedly a function of the human spirit, that 
if men can get nothing else to reverence they will worship a 
fool, or a stone, or a vegetable. But to teach reverence rightly 
is to attach it to the right persons and things ; first, by setting 
over your youth masters whom they cannot but love and 
respect ; next, by gathering for them, out of past history, what- 
ever has been most worthy, in human deeds and human pas- 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 89 

sion; and leading them continually to dwell upon such in- 
stances, making this the principal element of emotional ex- 
citement to them; and, lastly, by letting them justly feel, as 
far as may he, the smallness of their own powers and knowl- 
edge, as compared with the attainments of others. 

Compassion, on the other hand, is to be taught chiefly by 
making it a point of honour, collaterally with courage, and 
in the same rank (as indeed the complement and evidence 
of courage), so that, in the code of unwritten school law, it 
shall be held as shameful to have done a cruel thing as a cow- 
ardly one. All infliction of pain on weaker creatures is to 
be stigmatized as unmanly crime ; and every possible oppor- 
tunity taken to exercise the youths in offices of some prac- 
tical help, and to acquaint them with the realities of the dis- 
tress which, in the joy fulness of entering into life, it is so 
difficult for those who have not seen home suffering, to con- 
ceive. 

Reverence, then, and compassion, we are to teach primarily, 
and with these, as the bond and guardian of them, truth of 
spirit and word, of thought and sight. Truth, earnest and 
passionate, sought for like a treasure and kept like a crown. 

This teaching of truth as a habit will be the chief work 
the master has to do; and it will enter into all parts of edu- 
cation. First, you must accustom the children to close ac- 
curacy of statement ; this both as a principle of honour, and 
as an accomplishment of language, making them try always 
who shall speak truest, both as regards the fact he has to 
relate or express (not concealing or exaggerating), and as 
regards the precision of the words he expresses it in, thus mak- 
ing truth (which, indeed, it is) the test of perfect language, 
and giving the intensity of a moral purpose to the study and 
art of words: then carrying this accuracy into all habits of 



90 , EDUCATION 

thought and observation also, so as always to think of things 
as they truly are and to see them as they truly are, as far 
as in us rests. And it does rest much in our power, for all 
false thoughts and seeings come mainly of our thinking of 
what we have no business with, and looking for things we 
want to see, instead of things that ought to be seen. 

"Do not talk but of what you know; do not think but of 
what you have materials to think justly upon; and do not 
look for things only that you like, when there are others to 
be seen" — this is the lesson to be taught to our youth, and 
inbred in them ; and that mainly by our own example and con- 
tinence. Never teach a child anything of which you are not 
yourself sure ; and, above all, if you feel anxious to force any- 
thing into its mind in tender years, that the virtue of youth 
and early association may fasten it there, be sure it is no 
lie which you thus sanctify. There is always more to be 
taught of absolute, incontrovertible knowledge, open to its 
capacity, than any child can learn ; there is no need to teach 
it anything doubtful. Better that it should be ignorant of a 
thousand truths, than have consecrated in its heart a single 
lie. 

And for this, as well as for many other reasons, the princi- 
pal subjects of education, after history, ought to be natural 
science and mathematics; but with respect to these studies, 
your schools will require to be divided into three groups ; one 
for children who will probably have to live in cities, one for 
those who will live in the country, and one for those who will 
live at sea ; the schools for these last, of course, being always 
placed on the coast. And for children whose life is to be in 
cities, the subjects of study should be, as far as their dis- 
position will allow of it, mathematics and the arts; for chil- 
dren who are to live in the country, natural history of birds, 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 91 

insects, and plants, together with agriculture taught prac- 
tically ; and for children who are to be seamen, physical geog- 
raphy, astronomy, and the natural history of sea fish and sea 
birds.^® 

Negatively it is to be said that education is not 
to be made a means of a livelihood. 

So far as you come to Oxford in order to get your hving 
out of her, you are ruining both Oxford and yourselves. 
There never has been, there never can be, any other law re- 
specting the wisdom that is from above, than this one pre- 
cept, — ''Buy the Truth, and sell it not.'* It is to be costly 
to you — of labour and patience ; and you are never to sell it, 
but to guard, and to give.^° 

The result of education is holiness, faithfulness 
to duty and kingliness in character and deed. 

We once taught them [our youths] to make Latin verses, 
and called them educated; now we teach them to leap and 
to row, to hit a ball with a bat, and call them educated. Can 
they plow, can they sow, can they plant at the right time, 
or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort of their lives 
to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in 
word and deed ? Indeed it is, with some, nay with many, and 
the strength of England is in them, and the hope; but we 
have to turn their courage from the toil of war to the toil of 
mercy; and their intellect from dispute of words to discern- 
ment of things; and their knighthood from the errantry of 
adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And 

"''Time and Tide," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., pp. 183-186. 
*"'The Art of England," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 352. 



92 EDUCATION 

then, indeed, shall abide, for them, and for us an incorruptible 
felicity, and an infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, 
no more to be assailed by temptation, no more to be defended 
by wrath and by fear; — shall abide with us Hope, no more 
to be quenched by the years that overwhelm, or made ashamed 
by the shadows that betray; shall abide for us, and with us, 
the ^eatest of these ; the abiding will, the abiding name, of 
our Father. For the greatest of these, is Charity.^^ 

Such are some of the elements and qualities of 
education. But more specifically and fully Mr. 
Euskin has a good deal to say about the body of 
education itself. What are the studies which go to 
make up this great force ? Under various forms in 
several volumes Mr. Ruskin has indicated what he 
thinks should be the content of education. The 
elements of this content differ in different state- 
ments, ^^but," he says in the last volume of ^'Mod- 
ern Painters/' 

I have no doubt that every child in a civilized country 
should be taught the first principles of natural history, physi- 
ology and medicine; also to sing perfectly, so far as it has 
capacity, and to draw any definite form accurately to any 
scale. 

These things it should be taught by requiring its attend- 
ance at school not more than three hours a day, and less if 
possible (the best part of children's education being in help- 
ing their parents and families). The other elements of its 

"' 'Sesame and Lilies," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 136. 



ACCORDING TO EUSKIN 93 

instruction ought to have respect to the trade by which it 
is to live. 

Modern systems of improvement are too apt to confuse the 
recreation of the workman with his education. He should be 
educated for his work before he is allowed to undertake it; 
and refreshed and relieved while he practises it.^^ 

In ^^Fors," in a letter written in 1871, he says: 

Of Arithmetic, Geometry and Chemistry, you can know but 
little, at the utmost; but that little, well learnt, serves you 
well. And a little Latin, well learnt, will serve you also, and 
in a higher way than any of these. ^^ 

At the other extreme of the educational process 
he asks the question: What should the average 
first-class man of Oxford know ? He answers the 
question by saying: 

I should require, for a first class, proficiency in two schools ; 
not, of course, in all the subjects of each chosen school, but 
in a well chosen and combined group of them. Thus, I should 
call a very good first-class man one who had got some such 
range of subjects, and such proficiency in each, as this: 

English, Greek and Mediaeval-Italian Literature High. 

English and French History, and Archasology Average. 

Conic Sections Thorough, as far as learnt. 

Political Economy Thorough, as far as learnt. 

Botany, or Chemistry, or Physiology High. 

"''Modern Painters," Vol. V., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 413 (note). 

23 ' ' Fors Clavigera, ' ' Vol. I., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 16. 



94 EDUCATION" 

Painting Average. 

Music Average. 

Bodily Exercise High.^^ 

For the youth of England Mr. Ruskin believes 
that acquaintance should be had with at least five 
cities and with six nations. The five cities are 
Rome, Athens, Venice, Florence, and London. Not 
only the English boy, but every European boy 
should know the history of these five towns. And 
the six nations are the Roman, the Greek, the Sy- 
rian, the Egyptian, and, strange to say, the Tuscan 
and the Arab. 

In the process of education, reading, despite all 

that has been written to the contrary, plays an 

important part, and for the content of education 

the books which are most worth reading are of 

tremendous consequence. Mr. Ruskin gives a list 

of such books. What he has to say has wide and 

vital significance : 

I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of your library to 
you, every several mind needs different books; but there are 
some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read 
Homer, Plato, ^sehylus, Herodotus, Dante, Shakespeare, and 
Spenser, as much as you ought, you will not require wide en- 
largement of shelves to right and left of them for purposes 
of perpetual study. Among modern books, avoid generally 

' Arrows of the Cliace, ' ' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 45. 



24 < 



ACCOEDING TO EUSKIN 95 

magazine and review literature. Sometimes it may contain 
a useful abridgement or a wholesome piece of criticism; but 
the chances are ten to one it will either waste your time or 
mislead you. If you want to understand any subject what- 
ever, read the best book upon it you can hear of ; not a review 
of the book. If you don't like the first book you try, seek for 
another ; but do not hope ever to understand the subject with- 
out pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that class 
of literature which has a knowing tone ; it is the most poison- 
ous of all. Every good book, or piece of book, is full of ad- 
miration and awe; it may contain firm assertion or stern 
satire, but it never sneers coldly, nor asserts haughtily, and it 
always leads you to reverence or love something with your 
whole heart. It is not always easy to distinguish the satire 
of the venomous race of books from the satire of the noble and 
pure ones ; but in general you may notice that the cold-blooded 
Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment; 
and the warm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in gen- 
eral, the more you can restrain your serious reading to reflec- 
tive or lyric poetry, history, and natural history, avoiding 
fiction and the drama, the healthier your mind will become. 
Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats, Crabbe, 
Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and Cov- 
entry Patmore, whose ' ' Angel in the House " is a most finished 
piece of writing, and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet, 
modern domestic feeling; while Mrs, Browning's "Aurora 
Leigh ' ' is, as far as I know, the greatest poem which the cen- 
tury has produced in any language. Cast Coleridge at once 
aside, as sickly and useless ; and Shelley as shallow and ver- 
bose; Byron, until your taste is fully formed, and you are 
able to discern the magnificence in him from the wrong. 
Never read bad or common poetry, nor write any poetry your- 



96 EDUCATION 

self; there is, perhaps, rather too much than too little in the 
world already. 

Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps. 
Carlyle is hardly to be named as a writer for ' ' beginners, ' ' be- 
cause his teaching, though to some of us vitally necessary, may 
to others be hurtful. If you understand and like him, read 
him; if he offends you, you are not yet ready for him, and 
perhaps may never be so; at all events, give him up, as you 
would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you are 
stronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's 
novels, Miss Edgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, 
Madame de Genlis', the French Miss Edge worth; making 
these, I mean, your constant companions. Of course you must, 
or will read other books for amusement, once or twice; but 
you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them, 
existing in nothing else of their kind: while their peculiar 
quietness and repose of manner will also be of the greatest 
value in teaching you to feel the same characters in art. Read 
little at a time, trying to feel interest in little things, and 
reading not so much for the sake of the story as to get ac- 
quainted with the pleasant people into whose company these 
writers bring you. A common book will often give you much 
amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you 
dear friends. Remember also that it is of less importance 
to you in your earlier years, that the books you read should 
be clever, than that they should be right. I do not mean 
oppressively or repulsively instructive ; but that the thoughts 
they express should be just, and the feelings they excite 
generous. It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or 
the most suggestive books : it is better, in general, to hear what 
is already known, and may be simply said. Much of the lit- 
erature of the present day, though good to be read by persons 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 97 

of ripe age, has a tendency to agitate rather than confirm, 
and leaves its readers too frequently in a helpless or hopeless 
indignation, the worst possible state into which the mind of 
youth can be thrown. ^^ 

Such are some of the thoughts of Mr. Ruskin 
regarding the general end and content of education. 
He lays bare, and interprets, the defects and the 
possible excellences — the defects being more sig- 
nificant than the excellences — of the system of 
education known to him. His interpretations are 
not to be received as philosophic in either thought 
or expression. He writes with either passion or 
picturesqueness, or both, but his motives are the 
purest and his aims the highest. The irregularity 
of the content of education which he suggests may 
arise in part from the uniqueness of his own educa- 
tion ; for his education was quite unlike that of the 
English boy of the upper middle class. It is a sub- 
ject of debate among Eton and Harrow men which 
school has contributed the larger share to the 
supremacy of the little island. John Ruskin was 
not a boy of Eton or of Harrow or even of Rugby. 
His mother and brothers were his private tutors 

^ '^Ethics of the Dust," Cabiuet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., pp. 411- 
413. 



98 EDUCATION 

until he went to Oxford in his fifteenth year. He 
is, therefore, both because of his personal training 
and also because of the individualistic character 
of his education, not inclined to lay down full pro- 
grams of studies. The schedules he does suggest 
seem to lay emphasis upon special studies without 
consideration of the relation of these studies to 
each other. They always emphasize the human in 
the formal and scholastic, and the utilitarian mo- 
tive rather than the theoretical aim. No master 
has placed an emphasis stronger or more constant 
on the value of religion in education than John 
Euskin. The educational form of this great force 
is largely instruction in the Bible. Euskin was, 
like Samuel, trained by his mother in the knowl- 
edge of the Holy Scriptures. His style in writing 
he believes was formed largely on the great scrip- 
tural models. In infancy he memorized many parts 
of the Bible, particularly of the Old Testament, and 
of its book of Psalms, and these chapters remained 
a lasting resource. Again and again he refers un- 
der diverse forms and at different times to the 
debt he owed to his mother in her compelling him 
to learn so many parts of the Bible. In the auto- 
biographic ^^Praeterita" he says: 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 99 

I have next with deeper gratitude to chronicle what I owed 
to my mother for the resolutely consistent lessons which 
so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make every word of 
them familiar to my ear in habitual music, — yet in that famil- 
iarity reverenced, as transcending all thought, and ordain- 
ing all conduct. 

This she effected, not by her own sayings or personal author- 
ity ; but simply by compelling me to read the book thoroughly, 
for myself. As soon as I was able to read with fluency, she 
began a course of Bible work with me, which never ceased till 
I went to Oxford. She read alternate verses with me, watch- 
ing, at first, every intonation of my voice, and correcting the 
false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if within 
my reach, rightly, and energetically. It might be beyond 
me altogether; that she did not care about; but she made 
sure that as soon as I got hold of it at all, I should get hold 
of it by the right end. 

In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis and 
went straight through, to the last verse of the Apocalypse; 
hard names, numbers, Levitical law, and all ; and began again 
at Genesis the next day. If a name was hard, the better 
the exercise in pronunciation, — if a chapter was tiresome, the 
better lesson in patience, — if loathsome, the better lesson in 
faith that there was some use in its being so outspoken. After 
our chapters (from two to three a day, according to their 
length, the first thing after breakfast, and no interruption 
from servants allowed, — none from visitors, who either joined 
in the reading or had to stay upstairs, — and none from any 
visitings or excursions, except real travelling,) I had to learn 
a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I had not lost, 
something of what was already known ; and, with the chapters 



100 EDUCATION 

thus gradually possessed from the first word to the last, I had 
to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, 
which are good, melodious, and forceful verse ; and to which, 
together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of 
my ear in sound. 

It is strange that all of the pieces of the Bible which my 
mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, 
and which was, to my child's mind, chiefly repulsive — the 
119th Psalm — has now become of all the most precious to me, 
in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law 
of God, in opposition to the abuse of it by modem preachers 
of what they imagine to be His gospel. 

But it is only by deliberate effort that I recall the long 
morning hours of toil, as regular as sunrise, — toil on both 
sides equal — by which, year after year, my mother forced 
me to learn these paraphrases, and chapters, (the eighth of 
1st Kings being one — try it, good reader, in a leisure hour!) 
allowing not so much as a syllable to be missed or misplaced ; 
while every sentence was required to be said over and over 
again till she was satisfied with the accent of it. I recollect 
a struggle between us of about three weeks, concerning the 
accent of the ''of" in the lines 

^' Shall any following spring revive 
The ashes of the urn?" — 

I insisting, partly in childish obstinacy, and partly in true 
instinct for rhythm (being wholly careless on the subject both 
of urns and their contents), on reciting it with an accented 
of. It was not, I say, till after three weeks' labor, that my 
mother got the accent lightened on the ''of" and laid on the 
ashes, to her mind. But had it taken three years, she would 
have done it, having once undertaken to do it. And, assur- 



ACCOEDING TO RUSKIN 101 

edly, had she not done it, — well, there's no knowing what 
would have happened; but I am very thankful she did. 

I have just opened my oldest (in use) Bible, — a small, 
closely, and very neatly printed volume it is, printed in Edin- 
burgh by Sir D. Hunter Blair and J. Bruce, Printers to the 
King's Most Excellent Majesty, in 1816. Yellow, now, with 
age, and flexible, but not unclean, with much use, except that 
tlie lower corners of the pages at 8th of 1st Kings, and 32d 
Deuteronomy, are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning 
of these two chapters having cost me much pains. My moth- 
er's list of the chapters with which, thus learned, she estab- 
lished my soul in life, has just fallen out of it. I will take 
what indulgence the incurious reader can give me, for print- 
ing the list thus accidentally occurrent: 

Exodus, chapters 15th and 20th. 

2 Samuel, chapter 1st, from 17th verse to the end. 

1 Kings, chapter 8th. 

Psalms, chapters 23d, 32d, 90th, 91st, 103d, 112th, 119th, 

139th. 
Proverbs, chapters 2d, 3d, 8th, 12th. 
Isaiah, chapter 58th. 
Matthew, chapters 5th, 6th, 7th. 
Acts, chapter 26th. 
1 Corinthians, chapters 13th, 15th. 
James, chapter 4th. 
Revelation, chapters 5th, 6th. 

And truly, though I have picked up the elements of a little 
further knowledge — in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, 
in after life, — and owe not a little to the teaching of many 
people, this maternal installation of my mind in that prop- 



102 EDUCATION 

erty of chapters, I count very confidently the most precious, 
and, on the whole, the one essential part of all my education. 

And it is perhaps already time to mark what advantage and 
mischief, by the chances of life up to seven years old, had 
been irrevocably determined for me.^*^ 

In addition to the cultural element of a religious 
education, mention should be made of the moral 
quality. This moral quality has in it a tremendous 
significance as standing for efficiency of the highest 
order. Its value specially emerges in the Greek 
authors, but it characterizes the great literature of 
every nation. Mr. Ruskin says : 

One farther great, and greatest, sign of the Divinity in 
this enchanted work of the classic masters, I did not then 
assert, — for, indeed, I had not then myself discerned it, — 
namely, that this power of noble composition is never given 
but with accompanying instinct of moral law; and that so 
severe, that the apparently too complete and ideal justice 
which it proclaims has received universally the name of 
*' poetical" justice — the justice conceived only by the men 
of consummate imaginative power. So that to say of any 
man that he has power of design, is at once to say of him 
that he is using it on God's side; for it can only have been 
taught him by that Master, and cannot be taught by the 
use of it against Him. And therefore every great composition 
in the world, every great piece of painting or literature — 
without any exception, from the birth of Man to this hour — 
is an assertion of moral law, as strict, when we examine it, 

^ " Praetexita, " Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 35. 



ACCOEDING TO RUSKIN 103 

as the Eumenides or the Divina Commedia; while the total 
collapse of all power of artistic design in Italy at this day 
has been signalized and sealed by the production of an epic 
poem in praise of the Devil, and in declaration that God is a 
malignant " Larva. ' ' ^^ 

Mr. Ruskin does not decline to touch upon one 
of the most fundamental and insidious ills which 
disintegrate education and every other human 
force. Against it he thunders with tremendous 
passion. From Venice in the year 1877, he writes : 

Hence, if from any place in earth, I ought to be able to 
send you some words of warning to English youth, for the 
ruin of this mighty city was all in one word — fornication. 
Fools who think they can write history will tell you it was 
"the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope," and the like! 
Alas it was indeed the covering of every hope she had, in God 
and his Law. 

For indeed, my dear friend, I doubt if you can fight this 
evil by mere heroism and common-sense. Not many men are 
heroes ; not many are rich in common-sense. They "^vill train 
for a boat-race; will they for the race of life? For the ap- 
plause of the pretty girls in blue on the banks; yes. But 
to win the soul and body of a noble woman for their own 
forever, will they? Not as things are going, I think, though 
how or where they are to go or end is to me at present 
inconceivable.^^ 

"'Tors Clavigera," Vol. IV., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 176. 

==« ' ' Arrows of the Chaee, ' ' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 330. 



104 EDUCATION 

Further he says : 

All that you have advised and exposed is wisely said and 
bravely told ; but no advice, no exposure, will be of use, until 
the right relation exists again between the father and the 
mother and their son. To deserve his confidence, to keep it 
as the chief treasure committed in trust to them by God: to 
be the father his strength, the mother his sanctification, and 
both his chosen refuge, through all weakness, evil, danger, 
and amazement of his young life. My friend, while you still 
teach in Oxford the ''philosophy," forsooth, of that poor 
cretinous wretch, Stuart Mill, and are endeavouring to open 
other "careers" to English women than that of the Wife and 
the Mother, you won't make your men chaste by recommend- 
ing them to leave off tea.^^ 

I could say ever so much more, of course, if there were 
only time, or if it would be of any use — about the misappli- 
ance of the imagination. But really, the essential thing is the 
founding of real schools of instruction for both boys and girls 
— first, in domestic medicine and all that it means; and sec- 
ondly, in the plain moral law of all humanity: "Thou shalt 
not commit adultery," with all that it means.^^ 

Although the moral and religious elements are of 
supreme consequence, yet there are other special 
elements and forces which are preeminent. Fifty 
years ago Mr. Ruskin distinguished the sense and 
half -sense of so-called practical education. In this 
interpretation he also has much to say respecting 

=»7&id., p. 331. 
*^Il)id., p. 333. 



ACCORDING TO EUSKIN 105 

manual training and trade schools. What he wrote 
fifty years ago is apt for the present time. 

In order that men may be able to support themselves when 
they are grown, their strength must be properly developed 
while they are young ; and the state should always see to this 
— not allowing their health to be broken by too early labour, 
nor their powers to be wasted for want of knowledge. Some 
questions connected with this matter are noticed farther on 
under the head of "trial schools:" one point I must notice 
here, that I believe all youths of whatever rank, ought to 
learn some manual trade thoroughly ; for it is quite wonderful 
how much a man 's views of life are cleared by the attainment 
of the capacity of doing any one thing well with his hands 
and arms. For a long time, what right life there was in the 
upper classes of Europe depended in no small degree on the 
necessity which each man was under of being able to fence; 
at this day, the most useful things which boys learn at pub- 
lic schools, are, I believe, riding, rowing, and cricketing. But 
it would be far better that members of Parliament should be 
able to plough straight, and make a horseshoe, than only to 
feather oars neatly or point their toes prettUy in stirrups. 
Then, in literary and scientific teaching, the great point of 
economy is to give the discipline of it through knowledge 
which will immediately bear on practical life. Our literary 
work has long been economically useless to us because too 
much concerned with dead languages ; and our scientific work 
will yet, for some time, be a good deal lost, because scientific 
men are too fond or too vain of their systems, and waste 
the student's time in endeavouring to give him large views, 
and make him perceive interesting connections of facts ; when 
there is not one student, no, nor one man, in a thousand, who 



106 EDUCATION 

can feel the beauty of a system, or even take it clearly into 
his head; but nearly all men can understand, and most will 
be interested in, the facts which bear on daily life. Botanists 
have discovered some wonderful connection between nettles 
and figs, which a cow-boy who will never see a ripe fig in his 
life need not be at all troubled about; but it will be interest- 
ing to him to know what effect nettles have on hay, and what 
taste they will give to porridge ; and it will give him nearly 
a new life if he can be got but once, in a spring-time, to look 
well at the beautiful circlet of the white nettle blossom, and 
work out with his school-master the curves of its petals, and 
the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of 
chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to 
a peasant boy, and even to most sons of gentlemen, than their 
knowing how to find whether the water is wholesome in the 
back-kitchen cistern, or whether the seven-acre field wants 
sand or chalk. 

Having, then, directed the studies of our youth so as to 
make them practically serviceable men at the time of their 
entrance into life, that entrance should always be ready for 
them in cases where their private circumstances present no 
opening. There ought to be government establishments for 
every trade, in which all youths who desired it should be 
received as apprentices on their leaving school; and men 
thrown out of work received at all times. At these govern- 
ment manufactories th-e discipline should be strict, and the 
wages steady, not varying at all in proportion to the demand 
for the article, but only in proportion to the price of food; 
the commodities produced being laid up in store to meet 
sudden demands, and sudden fluctuations in prices prevenced: 
— that gradual and necessary fluctuation only being allowed 
which is properly consequent on larger or more limited supply 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 107 

of raw material and other natural causes. When there was 
a visible tendency to produce a glut of any commodity, that 
tendency should be checked by directing the youth at the 
government schools into other trades ; and the yearly surplus 
of commodities should be the principal means of government 
provision for the poor.^^ 

The principles thus laid down are indeed timely 
for the present conditions in America and in the 
whole world. 

Upon another side also of current problems our 
author has light to shed, to wit, vocational guid- 
ance: 

It is difficult to analyse the characters of mind which cause 
youths to mistake their vocation, and to endeavour to be- 
come artists, when they have no true artist's gift. But the 
fact is, that multitudes of young men do this, and that by 
far the greater number of living artists are men who have 
mistaken their vocation. The peculiar circumstances of mod- 
ern life, which exhibit art in almost every form to the sight 
of the youths in our great cities, have a natural tendency 
to fill their imaginations with borrowed ideas, and their minds 
with imperfect science ; the mere dislike of mechanical employ- 
ments, either felt to be irksome, or believed to be degrading, 
urges numbers of young men to become painters, in the same 
temper in which they would enlist or go to sea; others, the 
sons of engravers or artists, taught the business of the art by 
their parents, and having no gift for it themselves, follow it 
as a means of livelihood, in an ignoble patience ; or, if ambi- 

«''A Joy Forever," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 224. 



108 EDUCATION 

tious, seek to attract regard, or distance rivalry, by fantastic, 
meretricious, or unprecedented applications of their mechani- 
cal skill ; while finally, many men earnest in feeling, and con- 
scientious in principle, mistake their desire to be useful for 
a love of art, and their quickness of emotion for its capacity, 
and pass their lives in painting moral and instructive pictures^ 
which might almost justify us in thinking nobody could be a 
painter but a rogue. On the other hand, I believe that much 
of the best artistical intellect is daily lost in other avocations. 
Generally, the temper which would make an admirable artist 
is humble and observant, capable of taking much interest 
in little things, and of entertaining itself pleasantly in the 
dullest circumstances. Suppose, added to these characters, 
a steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty wherever 
it may be placed, and the power, denied to few artistical 
minds, of ingenious invention in almost any practical depart- 
ment of human skill, and it can hardly be doubted that the 
very humility and conscientiousness which would have per- 
fected the painter, have in many instances prevented his be- 
coming one; and that in the quiet life of our steady crafts- 
men — sagacious manufacturers, and uncomplaining clerks — 
there may frequently be concealed more genius than ever is 
raised to the direction of our public works, or to be the mark 
of our public praises.^^ 

Yet in all such vocational guidance, in training 
for trades, and in all types of manual education, 
it is to be remembered that these arts are expression 
of the mind. Manual training is really cerebral 

''Ibid., p. 229. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 109 

training. With the cerebral training is to be united 
also ethical training. 

. . . The manual arts are as accurate exponents of ethical 
state, as other modes of expression ; first, with absolute preci- 
sion, of that of the workman, and then with precision, dis- 
gnised by many distorting influences, of that of the nation 
to which he belongs.^^ 

For all these manual endeavors it is not to be 
forgotten that the higher academic ideals have 
value. Mr. Ruskin says : 

To which good end, it will indeed contribute that we add 
some practice of the lower arts to our scheme of University 
education ; but the thing which is vitally necessary is, that we 
should extend the spirit of University education to the prac- 
tice of the lower arts.^* 

Indeed art and scholarship are never to be sep- 
arated. 

What art may do for scholarship, I have no right to con- 
jecture; but what scholarship may do for art, I may in all 
modesty tell you. Hitherto, great artists, though always gen- 
tlemen, have yet been too exclusively craftsmen. Art has been 
less thoughtful than we suppose; it has taught much, but 
much, also, falsely. Many of the greatest pictures are enig- 
mas; others, beautiful toys; others, harmful and corrupting 
toys. In the loveliest there is something weak; in the great- 

=«'' Lectures on Art," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 242. 
^'IMd., p. 199. 



110 EDUCATION 

est there is something guilty. And this, gentlemen, if you 
will, is the new thing that may come to pass, — that the schol- 
ars of England may resolve to teach also with the silent power 
of the arts; and that some among you may so learn and use 
them, that pictures may be painted which shall not be enigmas 
any more, but open teachings of what can no otherwise be so 
well shown ; which shall not be fevered or broken visions any 
more, but shall be filled with the indwelling light of self- 
possessed imagination; which shall not be stained or enfee- 
bled any more by evil passion, but glorious with the strength 
and chastity of noble human love; and which shall no more 
degrade or disguise the work of God in heaven, but testify of 
Him as here dwelling with men, and walking with them, not 
angry, in the garden of the earth.^^ 

In Mr. Ruskin's conception of education the 
training of the workingman plays a significant 
part. The lastingness of his relation to the popular 
movement to this end is embodied at the present 
time in what is known as Ruskin College at Oxford, 
an independent foundation, and one which seeks to 
carry out his purposes by his methods. 

At this point emerges the opinion of the author 
of Queens' Gardens on the education of women. 
His conception of what the education of women 
should be arises from his conception of woman's 
nature itself. Of this nature in contrast with the 
nature of man, he says : 

''Ibid., p. 320. 



ACCORDING TO ErSKIK 111 

The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is 
eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. 
His intellect is for speculation and invention ; his energy for 
adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever war is just, 
wherever conquest necessary. But the woman's power is for 
rule, not for battle, — and her intellect is not for invention 
or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement and decision. 
Sho sees the qualities of things, their claims and their places. 
Her great function is Praise; she enters into no contest, but 
infallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and 
place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The 
man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all 
peril and trial : — to him, therefore, the failure, the offence, the 
inevitable error : often he must be wounded, or subdued, often 
misled, and always hardened. But he guards the woman from 
all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself 
has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause 
of error or offence. This is the true nature of home — it is the 
place of Peace ; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from 
all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, 
it is not home : so far as the anxieties of the outer life pene- 
trate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, un- 
loved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either 
husband or wife to cross. the threshold, it ceases to be home; 
it is then only a part of that outer world which you have 
roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred 
place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over 
by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but 
those whom they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, 
and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light, — 
shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos 



112 EDUCATION 

in the stormy sea; — so far it vindicates the name, and fulfils 
the praise, of home. 

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round 
her. The stars only may be over her head; the glow-w^orm 
in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot : but 
home is yet wherever she is ; and for a noble woman it stretches 
far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or painted with 
vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else 
were homeless. 

This, then, I believe to be, — will you not admit it to be, — 
the woman's true place and power? But do not you see that 
to fulfil this, she must — as far as one can use such terms of 
a human creature — be incapable of error? So far as she 
rules, all must be right, or nothing is. She must be endur- 
ingly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise — 
wise, not for self -development, but for self-renunciation : wise, 
not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she 
may never fail from his side : wise, not with the narrowness 
of insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentle- 
ness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable, 
modesty of service — the true changefulness of woman. In 
that great sense — ''La donna e mobile," not ''Qual pium' al 
vento;" no, nor yet ''Variable as the shade, by the light quiv- 
ering aspen made;" but variable as the light, manifold in 
fair and serene division, that it may take the color of all 
that it falls upon, and exalt it.^^ 

Upon this interpretation of woman's nature he 
bases his conception of woman's education and of 
this he says at length : 

"• ' ' Sesame and Lilies, ' ' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 86. 



ACCOEDING TO EUSKIN 113 

The first of our duties to her — no thoughtful persons now 
doubt this, — is to secure for her such physical training and 
exercises as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty, 
the highest refinement of that beauty being unattainable with- 
out splendor of activity and of delicate strength. To perfect 
her beauty, I say, and increase its power; it cannot be too 
powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far: only remember 
that all physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without 
a corresponding freedom of heart. . . . 

'^ Vital feelings of delight," observe. There are deadly 
feelings of delight; but the natural ones are vital, necessary 
to very life. 

And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be 
vital. Do not think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not 
make her happy. There is not one restraint you put on a 
good girl's nature — there is not one check you give to her 
instincts of affection or of effort — which will not be indelibly 
written on her features, with a hardness which is all the more 
painful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of 
innocence, and the charm from the brow of virtue. 

This for the means : now note the end. Take from the same 
poet, in two lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty — 

*^A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records, promises as sweet.'' 

The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only 
consist in that majestic peace, which is founded in the mem- 
ory of happy and useful years, — full of sweet records; and 
from the joining of this with that yet more majestic childish- 
ness, which is still full of change and promise; — opening 
always — modest at once, and bright, with hope of better things 



114 EDUCATION 

to be won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where 
there is still that promise — it is eternal youth. 

Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and 
then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and 
temper her mind with all knowledge and thoughts which tend 
to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its natural 
tact of love. 

All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her 
to understand, and even to aid, the work of men: and yet 
it should be given, not as knowledge, — not as if it were, or 
could be, for her an object to know; but only to feel, and to 
judge. It is of no moment, as a matter of pride or perfect- 
ness in herself, whether she knows many languages or one; 
but it is of the utmost, that she should be able to show kind- 
ness to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness of a 
stranger's tongue. It is of no moment to her own worth 
or dignity that she should be acquainted with this science 
or that; but it is of the highest that she should be trained 
in habits of accurate thought ; that she should understand the 
meaning, the inevitableness, and the loveliness of natural laws, 
and follow at least some one path of scientific attainment, 
as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation, 
into which only the wisest and bravest of men can descend, 
owning themselves forever children, gathering pebbles on a 
boundless shore. It is of little consequence how many posi- 
tions of cities she knows, or how many dates of events, or how 
many names of celebrated persons — it is not the object of 
education to turn a woman into a dictionary ; but it is deeply 
necessary that she should be taught to enter with her whole 
personality into the history she reads ; to picture the passages 
of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to apprehend, 
with her fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dra- 



ACCOEDING TO RUSKIN 115 

matie relations, which the historian too often only eclipses by 
his reasoning, and disconnects by his arrangement: it is for 
her to trace the hidden equities of divine reward, and catch 
sight, through the darkness, of the fateful threads of woven 
fire that connect error with its retribution. But, chiefly of 
all, she is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy 
with respect to that history which is being for her deter- 
mined, as the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful 
breath : and to the contemporary calamity which, were it but 
rightly mourned by her, would recur no more hereafter. She 
is to exercise herself in imagining what would be the effects 
upon her mind and conduct, if she were daily brought into 
the presence of the suffering which is not the less real because 
shut from her sight. She is to be taught somewhat to under- 
stand the nothingness of the proportion which that little 
world in which she lives and loves, bears to the world in which 
God lives and loves; — and solemnly she is to be taught to 
strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in propor- 
tion to the number they embrace, nor her prayer more languid 
than it is for the momentary relief from pain of her husband 
or her child, when it is uttered for the multitudes of those who 
have none to love them, — and is, '*for all who are desolate 
and oppressed. ' ' ^^ 

In the diversity of interpretation of things 
educational, Mr. Euskin does write of the value of 
certain special studies. Among them he is inclined 
to give a high place to logic. In his great early 
work he refers in more than one place to this sub- 
ject. 

''Ibid., p. 88. 



116 EDUCATION 

Next to imagination, the power of perceiving logical rela- 
tion is one of the rarest among men ; certainly, of those with 
whom I have conversed, I have found always ten who had deep 
feeling, quick wit, or extended knowledge, for one who could 
set down a syllogism without a flaw; and for ten who could 
set down a syllogism, only one who could entirely understand 
that a square has four sides.^^ 

But, as I have already intimated, Mr. Euskin 
has a lower opinion of the value of the sciences 
in education than he has of logic and of literature. 
No love is lost between him and the scientist. In 
the year 1884, he writes : 

The scientists slink out of my way now, as if I was a mad 
dog, for I let them have it hot and heavy whenever I've a 
chance at them.^® 

For Darwin in his ^^ Descent of Man" he has 
small use. He seeks to controvert Darwin's meth- 
ods and to oppose some of his conclusions. Mr. 
Euskin 's interpretations in science are to be re- 
ceived as of slight worth. But he does believe in 
the value of local natural history as a means of 
training students. He says: 

Thus, in our simplest codes of school instruction, I hope 
some day to see local natural history assume a principal place, 

'«'' Modern Painters," Vol. III., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 13. 

""'Hortus Inelusus, " Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes «S: Co., p. 60. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 117 

so that our peasant children may be taught the nature and 
uses of the herbs that grow in their meadows, and may take 
interest in observing and cherishing, rather than in hunting 
or killing, the harmless animals of their country. Supposing 
it determined that this local natural history should be taught, 
drawing ought to be used to fix the attention, and test, while 
it aided, the memory. * 'Draw such and such a flower in out- 
line, with its bell towards you. Draw it with its side towards 
you. Paint the spots upon it. Draw a duck's head — her 
foot. Now a robin's, — a thrush's, — now the spots upon the 
thrush 's breast. ' ' These are the kind of tasks which it seems 
to me should be set to the young peasant student.*^ 

It is also good to be able to say that the teaching 
of English our author regards as a mighty force 
in education. It is a happy condition that one 
whose books have become standard texts as exam- 
ples of good English and as means for the teaching 
of English should include, in the content of educa- 
tion, composition in English, and in other lan- 
guages. A school of literature he would found 
which should be occupied largely with human emo- 
tion and history. The human emotion should nor- 
mally be found in literature. Mr. Ruskin says : 

There are attractive qualities in Burns, and attractive quali- 
ties in Dickens, which neither of those writers would have pos- 
sessed if the one had been educated, and the other had been 
studying higher nature than that of cockney London; but 

*^^*K Joy Forever," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 252. 



118 EDUCATION 

those attractive qualities are not such as we should seek in 
a school of literature. If we want to teach young men a good 
manner of writing, we should teach it from Shakespeare, — ^not 
from Burns; from Walter Scott, — and not from Dickens.*^ 

The value of drawing is constantly referred to 
under divers forms, and with great emphasis, in all 
of Mr. Ruskin's works. I might refer to many 
pages, but I content myself with the simple declara- 
tion. 

This tremendous force called education is one 
devoted to the enlargement and enrichment of every 
faculty both of the race and of the individuals com- 
posing the race. It is not a force flung into the 
air, or hidden in the depths of the sea or of the land. 
It has a human application, yet it has a relationship 
to the natural elements and the environments 
which help to make man what he is. This value of 
environment is illustrated in a personal letter writ- 
ten in 1871, published as Letter Ten in the first 
volume of '^Fors." 

It happened also, which was the real cause of the bias of 
my after life, that my father had a rare love of pictures. I 
use the word ''rare" advisedly, having never met with an- 
other instance of so innate a faculty for the discernment of 
true art, up to the point possible without actual practice. 

"''Two Paths on Art," Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 44. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 119 

Accordingly, wherever there was a gallery to be seen, we 
stopped at the nearest town for the night; and in reverentest 
manner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses in Eng- 
land; not indeed myself at that age caring for the pictures, 
but much for castles and ruins, feeling more and more, as 
I grew older, the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, 
and perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any political truth 
at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a small 
house, and have Warwick Castle to be astonished at, than to 
live in Warwick Castle, and have nothing to be astonished 
at; but that, at all events, it would not make Brunswick 
Square in the least more pleasantly habitable, to pull War- 
wick Castle down. And, at this day, though I have kind 
invitations enough to visit America, I could not, even for a 
couple of months, live in a country so miserable as to possess 
no castles.*^ 

But aside from environment and natural ele- 
ments, education is above all else a process to be 
applied, as I have said, to the race and to individ- 
uals. 

Observe: I do not say, nor do I believe, that the lower 
classes ought not to be better educated, in millions of ways, 
than they are. I believe every man in a Christian kingdom 
ought to he equally well educated. But I would have it edu- 
cation to purpose ; stern, practical, irresistible, in moral habits, 
in bodily strength and beauty, in all faculties of mind capable 
of being developed under the circumstances of the individual, 

«"Fors Clavigera," Vol. L, Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., p. 
132. 



120 EDUCATION 

and especially in the technical knowledge of his own busi- 
ness ; but yet, infinitely various in its effort, directed to make 
one youth humble, and another confident ; to tranquillize 
this mind, to put some spark of ambition into that; now to 
urge, and now to restrain; and in the doing of all this, con- 
sidering knowledge as one only out of myriads of means 
in its hands, or myriads of gifts at its disposal; and giving 
it or withholding it as a good husbandman waters his garden, 
giving the full shower only to the thirsty plants and at times 
when they are thirsty, whereas at present we pour it upon 
the heads of our youth as the snow falls on the Alps, on one 
and another alike, till they can bear no more, and then take 
honor to ourselves because here and there a river descends 
from their crests into the valleys, not observing that we have 
made the loaded hills themselves barren for ever. 

Finally : I hold it for indisputable, that the first duty of a 
state is to see that every child born therein shall be well 
housed, clothed, fed, and educated, till it attain years of 
discretion.^^ 

It is through this education of the individual 
that he is strengthened in right choices, enlarged 
in intellect, made purer in heart and more divine 
in his entire character. His capacity and final 
effectiveness are determined at birth ; yet education 
transmutes possibilities into actualities. This mod- 
ern truth Mr. Euskin expresses in ^^ Modern Paint- 
ers" in saying: 

""Stones of Venice,'' Vol. III., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 222. 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 121 

I know well the common censure by which objections to such 
futilities of so-called education are met, by the men who have 
been ruined by them, — the common plea that anything does 
to ''exercise the mind upon." It is an utterly false one. The 
human soul, in youth, is not a machine of which you can 
polish the cogs with any kelp or brick-dust near at hand; 
and, having got it into working order, and good, empty, 
and oiled serviceableness, start your immortal locomotive at 
twenty-five years old or thirty, express from the Strait Gate, 
on the Narrow Eoad. The whole period of youth is one essen- 
tially of formation, edification, instruction, I use the words 
with their weight in them ; in taking of stores, establishment 
in vital habits, hopes, and faiths. There is not an hour of 
it but is trembling with destinies, — not a moment of which, 
once past, the appointed work can ever be done again, or 
the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. Take your vase 
of Venice glass out of the furnace, and strew chaff over it 
in its transparent heat, and recover that to its clearness and 
rubied glory when the north wind has blown upon it ; but do 
not think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God's 
presence, and to bring the heavenly colors back to him — at 
least in this world.^* 

The race does indeed need education as he has 
well said in '^Stones of Venice;" 

It seems to me, then, that the whole human race, so far 
as their own reason can be trusted, may at present be re- 
garded as just emergent from childhood; and beginning for 
the first time to feel their strength, to stretch their limbs, 

**** Modern Painters," Vol. IV., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 497. 



122 EDUCATION 

and explore the creation around them. If we consider that, 
till within the last fifty years, the nature of the ground we 
tread on, of the air we breathe, and of the light by which we 
see, were not so much as conjecturally conceived by us; that 
the duration of the globe, and the races of animal life by 
which it was inhabited, are just beginning to be apprehended; 
and that the scope of the magnificent science which has re- 
vealed them, is as yet so little received by the public mind, 
that presumption and ignorance are still permitted to raise 
their voices against it unrebuked ; that perfect veracity in the 
representation of general nature by art has never been at- 
tempted until the present day, and has in the present day 
been resisted with all the energy of the popular voice; that 
the simplest problems of social science are yet so little under- 
stood, as that doctrines of liberty and equality can be openly 
preached, and so successfully as to affect the whole body 
of the civilized world with apparently incurable disease ; that 
the first principles of commerce were acknowledged by the 
English Parliament only a few months ago, in its free trade 
measures, and are still so little understood by the million, 
that no nation dares abolish its custom-houses; that the sim- 
plest principles of policy are still not so much as stated, far 
less received, and that civilized nations persist in the belief 
that the subtlety and dishonesty which they know to be ruin- 
ous in dealings between man and man, are serviceable in deal- 
ings between multitude and multitude ; finally, that the scope 
of the Christian religion, which we have been taught for two 
thousand years, is still so little conceived by us, that we sup- 
pose the laws of charity and of self-sacrifice bear upon indi- 
viduals in all their social relations, and yet do not bear 
upon nations in any of their political relations ; — when, I say, 
we thus review the depth of simplicity in which the human 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 123 

race are still plunged with respect to all that it most pro- 
foundly concerns them to know, and which might, by them, 
with most ease have been ascertained, we can hardly deter- 
mine how far back on the narrow path of human progress 
we ought to place the generation to which we belong, how far 
the swaddling clothes are unwound from us, and childish 
things beginning to be put away.*^ 



Much that lias been said of education according 
to John Euskin receives either illustration or em- 
phasis in the account he liimself gives of his own 
education, in his autobiographic ^^Praeterita." 
From this interpretation I select a few of the more 
pregnant paragraphs : 



And for best and truest beginning of all blessings, I had 
been taught the perfect meaning of Peace, in thought, act, 
and word. . . . 

Next to this quite priceless gift of Peace, I had received 
the perfect understanding of the natures of Obedience and 
Faith. I obeyed word, or lifted finger, of father or mother, 
simply as a ship her helm; not only without idea of resist- 
ance, but receiving the direction as a part of my own life 
and force, a helpful law, as necessary to me in every moral 
action as the law of gravity in leaping. And my practice in 
Faith was soon complete : nothing was ever promised me that 
was not given; nothing ever threatened me that was not in- 
flicted, and nothing ever told me that was not true. 

Peace, obedience, faith ; these three for chief good ; next to 

***' stones of Venice," Vol. III., Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., 
p. 167. 



124 EDUCATION 

these, the habit of fixed attention with both eyes and mind — 
on which I will not further enlarge at this moment, this being 
the main practical faculty of my life, causing Mazzini to 
say of me, in conversation authentically reported, a year or 
two before his death, that I had ''the most analytic mind 
in Europe. * * An opinion in which, so far as I am acquainted 
with Europe, I am myself entirely disposed to concur. 

Lastly, an extreme perfection in palate and all other bodily 
senses, given by the utter prohibition of cake, wine, comfits, 
or, except in caref ullest restriction, fruit ; and by fine prepa- 
ration of what food was given me. Such I esteem the main 
blessings of my childhood; — next, let me count the equally 
dominant calamities. 

First, that I had nothing to love. 

My parents were — in a sort — visible powers of nature to 
me, no more loved than the sun and the moon : only I should 
have been annoyed and puzzled if either of them had gone 
out; (how much, now, when both are darkened!) — still less 
did I love God ; not that I had any quarrel with Him, or fear 
of Him ; but simply found what people told me was His serv- 
ice, disagreeable ; and what people told me was His book, not 
entertaining. I had no companions to quarrel with, neither; 
nobody to assist, and nobody to thank. Not a servant was 
ever allowed to do anything for me, but what it was their duty 
to do; and why should I have been grateful to the cook for 
cooking, or the gardener for gardening, — when the one dared 
not give me a baked potato without asking leave, and the 
other would not let my ants' nests alone, because they made 
the walks untidy? The evil consequence of all this was not, 
however, what might perhaps have been expected, that I grew 
up selfish or unaff eetionate ; but that, when affection did 
come, it came with violence utterly rampant and unmanage- 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 125 

able, at least by me, who never before had anything to 
manage. 

For (second of chief calamities) I had nothing to endure. 
Danger or pain of any kind I knew not: my strength was 
never exercised, my patience never tried, and my courage 
never fortified. Not that I was ever afraid of anything, — 
either ghosts, thunder, or beasts; and one of the nearest ap- 
proaches to insubordination which I was ever tempted into 
as a child, was in passionate effort to get leave to play with 
the lion's cubs in Wombwell's menagerie. 

Thirdly. I was taught no precision nor etiquette of man- 
ners; it was enough if, in the little society we saw, I re- 
mained unobtrusive, and replied to a question without shy- 
ness: but the shyness came later, and increased as I grew 
conscious of the rudeness arising from the want of social dis- 
cipline, and found it impossible to acquire, in advanced life, 
dexterity in any bodily exercise, skill in any pleasing accom- 
plishment, or ease and tact in ordinary behavior. 

Lastly, and chief of evils. My judgment of right and 
wrong, and powers of independent action, were left entirely 
undeveloped; because the bridle and blinkers were never 
taken off me. Children should have their times of being off 
duty, like soldiers; and when once the obedience, if required, 
is certain, the little creature should be very early put for 
periods of practice in complete command of itself; set on the 
barebacked horse of its own will, and left to break it by its 
own strength. But the ceaseless authority exercised over my 
youth left me, when cast out at last into the world, unable 
for some time to do more than drift with its vortices. 

My present verdict, therefore, on the general tenor of my 
education at that time, must be, that it was at once too formal 
and too luxurious; leaving my character, at the most impor- 



126 EDUCATION 

tant moment for its construction, cramped indeed, but not 
disciplined; and only by protection innocent, instead of by 
practice virtuous. My mother saw this herself, and but too 
clearly, in later years; and whenever I did anything wrong, 
stupid, or hard-hearted, — (and I have done many things that 
were all three,) — always said, **It is because you were too 
much indulged."*^ 

The comprehensive conclusion is : 

Thus, in perfect health of life and fire of heart, not want- 
ing to be anything but the boy I was, not wanting to have 
anything more than I had; knowing of sorrow only just so 
much as to make life serious to me, not enough to slacken 
in the least its sinews; and with so much of science mixed 
with feeling as to make the sight of the Alps not only the 
revelation of the beauty of the earth, but the opening of the 
first page of its volume, — I went down that evening from 
the garden-terrace of Schaffhausen with my destiny fixed in 
all of it that was to be sacred and useful. To that terrace, 
and the shore of the Lake of Geneva, my heart and faith re- 
turn to this day, in every impulse that is yet nobly alive in 
them, and every thought that has in it help or peaee.*^ 

A similar experience, and likewise far-reaching, 
one recalls as occurring in the life of Charles Kings- 
ley. Of Mr. Ruskin's life at Oxford, broken into 
by his sickness, it is superfluous now to write. This 
life apparently had little influence over his career. 

**'*'Praeterita,'' Cabinet Edition, Dana Estes & Co., pp. 38-40. 
*'IMd., p. 98. 



ACCORDING TO EUSKIN 127 

He finally took a ^^complimentary double fourth." 
His development was slow, but he finally came to 
his large self. 

I have no space in this story to describe the advantages I 
never used ; nor does my own failure give me right to blame, 
even were there any use in blaming, a system now passed 
away. Oxford taught me as much Greek and Latin as she 
could; and though I think she might also have told me that 
fritillaries grew in Iffley meadow, it was better that she left 
me to find them for myself, than that she should have told 
me, as nowadays she would, that the painting on them was 
only to amuse the midges. For the rest, the whole time I 
was there, my mind was simply in the state of a squash 
before 'tis a peascod, — and remained so yet a year or two 
afterward, I grieve to say; — so that for any account of my 
real life, the gossip hitherto given to its codling or cocoon 
condition has brought us but a little way. I must get on to 
the days of opening sight, and effective labor; and to the 
scenes of nobler education which all men, who keep their 
hearts open, receive in the End of Days.^^ 

As one reviews all that Mr. Euskin wrote 
through a half -century, and under diverse condi- 
tions, on education, the question emerges: What 
was the worthiest contribution which he made to 
the great cause, and what, if any, was the defect or 
weakness in his offering ? The answer is not far to 
seek. Mr. Euskin 's chief contribution lies in the 

*^Ibid., p. 210. 



128 EDUCATION 

emphasis he placed on, and in the analyses he made 
of, the moral element in character and training. 

By the moral element one does not mean merely 
the ethical virtues, either major or minor, although 
they are included. One does have in mind those 
parts of character which are primarily spiritual 
or non-intellectual. Perhaps no better single illus- 
tration or example could be found than that which 
is furnished by the Beatitudes of Christ. The love 
for, and the making of peace, mercy, purity of 
heart, meekness, are the supreme qualities which 
he holds most dear. Obedience, faith, gentleness, 
charity, are words which drop from his pen like 
dew from the siunmer skies. To him, cruelty and 
idleness are abominable. Like St. John, he is an 
apostle of and to the heart. His seven lamps of 
architecture are the lights which illumine every 
human path. The stones of the city which he most 
adores are laid with the fair colors of goodness 
and tenderness and love. 

Of such interpretation and of such emphasis 
there is abundant need. In an age which delights 
to call itself dynamic, and whose emblem is either 
an electric bulb or a gas-engine, placed in an auto- 
mobile, it is good to find accent put on qualities 
which are neither splendid nor meretricious nor 



ACCORDING TO RUSKIN 129 

crass. It is indeed good to find the Divine Spirit 
not in the whirlwind or the thunder, but in the 
still, small voice. 

This emphasis on the moral side also points out 
the defect of his theory, as a shadow follows the 
light. The defect lies in the lack of proper atten- 
tion to the strictly intellectual side of education. 
Although the intellect is a less important tool in 
human progress than is supposed by most men, it 
does have its great and unique place. Ruskin's 
own desultory and broken course of education un- 
consciously aif ects his theories. The scientific type 
of mind he contemns. Of the masters in philoso- 
phy, as Kant, he has slight knowledge. For the 
clear light of truth without shadow or turning, free 
from prejudice and devoid of passion, his mind has 
slight affinity. He interprets quite as much with 
the heart as with the brain. To think (although 
he declares he wishes to be known as a thinker), 
to reason, to judge, to weigh evidence, he lacked a 
worthy and adequate power, even with all his 
unique and tremendously great gifts. 

For two of his own great contemporaries, John 
Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin, he has either deri- 
sion or sarcasm. Next to Turner, the most out- 
standing object of his admiration is Thomas Car- 



130 EDUCATION 

lyle. He prefers the pre-Raphaelites to Raphael, 
and Burne-Jones to Michael Angelo. His judg- 
ment of personalities interprets his own person- 
ality, and helps to determine the worth of his inter- 
pretation of education. 



IV 

EDUCATION ACCOEDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 

THE men who were the leaders of thought and 
action in England between the passage of 
the Eeform Bill of 1832 and the passage of the 
Education Bill of 1870, were the ablest of all who 
have lived since the great company of those who 
flourished in the reign of Henry VIII. and of 
Elizabeth. This large circle includes Peel, 
Palmerston, Cobden, Brougham, Disraeli, Glad- 
stone, Macaulay, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Brown- 
ing, Tennyson, Darwin, Huxley and Spencer. In 
this group, John Stuart Mill has a unique place. 
Whether that place is large or small — and most 
would agree in thinking it is large — it is certainly 
a place unique in its breadth and intensity of 
influence. Herbert Spencer said of Mill that 
^^ during a considerable period his had been the 
one conspicuous flgure in the higher regions of 
thought. So great, indeed, was his influence that 
during the interval between, say 1840 and 1860, few 

131 



132 EDUCATION 

dared to call his views in question." ^ To the three 
great provinces of economics, inductive logic and 
of political science, he made rich contributions. 

Yet in a smaller circle, and not unworthy, Mill 
fills a place also central and commanding. This 
circle was likewise impressive. It included Car- 
lyle, Ruskin, Bentham, George Grote, his early 
friend for whom he pronounced a ^^ well-done" in 
his review of Aristotle, the Austins, Ricardo, Mau- 
rice, the thinker, John Sterling, the poet, and his 
own father. Mill was the worthy son of his father, 
for, as Bain says in the biography of the father, 
that 

His Intellectual powers were of a high order is attested 
by the work that he achieved. That his special characteristics 
were such as we denominate by the terms scientific and logical, 
is also apparent. His training in science was not even the 
highest that the time could have permitted; he had, never- 
theless, imbibed the scientific methods to a degree beyond most 
of the professed votaries of science. In other words, he had 
thoroughly mastered Evidence, and all the processes sub- 
servient thereto. His training was aided by the old logicians, 
and by the best models of clear reasoning that the philo- 
sophical literature of the past could afford.^ 

The exceptional place which Mill held in this 
group, small in numbers, but great in weight, is 

* Herbert Spencer 's Autobiography, Vol. II., p. 289. 
"Bain's ''James MiU," p. 420. 



AX:iCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 133 

intimated by the interpretation made by one of the 

younger members, the only one still surviving. In 

writing of the death of Mill, John Morley says : 

Even those whom Mr. Mill honoured with his friendship, 
and who must always bear to his memory the affectionate ven- 
eration of sons, may yet feel their pain at the thought that 
they will see him no more, raised into a higher mood as they 
meditate on the loftiness of his task and the steadfastness 
and success with which he achieved it. If it is grievous to 
think that such richness of culture, such full maturity of wis- 
dom, such passion for truth and justice, are now by a single 
stroke extinguished, at least we may find some not unworthy 
solace in the thought of the splendid purpose that they have 
served in keeping alive, and surrounding with new attractions, 
the difficult tradition of patient and accurate thinking in 
union with unselfish and magnanimous living.^ 

Morley also says that with his reputation will 
stand or fall the intellectual repute of a whole 
generation of his countrymen. The most eminent 
of those who are now so fast becoming the front 
line, as death mows down the veterans, bear traces 
of his influence, whether they are avowed disciples 
or avowed opponents. For a score of years no 
one at all open to serious intellectual impressions 
left Oxford without being touched by the influence 
of Mr. Mill's teaching. Yet it would be too much 
to say that in that temple where they are ever 

'John Morley 's ''Critical Miscellanies," Vol. III., p. 38. 



134 EDUCATION 

burnishing new idols, his throne is still unshaken. The pro- 
fessorial chairs there and elsewhere are more and more be- 
ing filled with men whose minds have been trained in his prin- 
ciples. The universities only typify his influence on the less 
learned part of the world. The better sort of journalists 
educated themselves on his books, and even the baser sort 
acquired a habit of quoting from them. He is the only writer 
in the world whose treatises on highly abstract subjects have 
been printed during his lifetime in editions for the people, 
and sold at the price of railway novels.* 

Of him, directly upon Ms death, Carlyle said to 
Charles Eliot Norton : 

I never knew a finer, tenderer, more sensitive or modest 
soul among the sons of men.** 

Such were some of the circumstances attending 
the life of John Stuart Mill. Such also were cer- 
tain of the personalities whom he influenced and 
who influenced him. And such are something of 
the intimations of the worth of his rich service to 
humanity. 

His own education was unique. His father was 
his teacher. Never was a father more richly blessed 
in a son of his intellectual, as well as of his physical, 
loins. His own education he has described in many 
pages which should be quoted at length. 

*7&td., p. 39. 

■"Letters of Charles Eliot Norton,^' Vol. I., p. 495. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 135 

I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn 
Greek, I have been told that it was when I was three years 
old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of com- 
mitting to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists 
of common Greek words, with their signification in English, 
which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some 
years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns 
and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once 
to translation ; and I faintly remember going through JGsop 's 
Fables, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, 
which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin 
until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my 
father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among 
whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon 's 
Cyropgedia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of 
the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and 
Isocrates ad Demonicum and Ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 
1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) 
of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theoctetus inclusive: 
which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been bet- 
ter omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand 
it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not 
only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by 
no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to 
undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from 
the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing 
my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table 
at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and 
English lexicons were not, and I could make no more use of 
a Greek and Latin lexicon than could be made without having 
yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to 
him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. 



136 EDUCATION 

This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient 
of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption 
several volumes of his History and all else that he had to 
write during those years. 

The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in 
this part of my childhood, was arithmetic : this also my father 
taught me: it was the task of the evenings, and I well re- 
member its disagreeableness. But the lessons were only a part 
of the daily instruction I received. Much of it consisted in 
the books I read by myself, and my father's discourses to me, 
chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 
we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic 
neighbourhood. My father 's health required considerable and 
constant exercise, and he walked habitually before break- 
fast, generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey. In these 
walks I always accompanied him, and with my earliest recol- 
lections of green fields and wild flowers, is mingled that of 
the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day 
before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary 
rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of 
paper while reading, and from these in the morning walks, 
I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, 
of which I read in this manner a great number: Robertson's 
histories, Hume, Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and 
for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip the Second and 
Third. The heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against 
the Turks, and of the revolted Provinces of the Netherlands 
against Spain, excited in me an intense and lasting interest. 
Next to Watson, my favourite historical reading was Hooke 's 
History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no regu- 
lar history, except school abridgments and the last two or 
three volumes of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 137 

beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great 
delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English 
history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I re- 
member reading Burnet's History of his Own Time, though 
I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; 
and the historical part of the "Annual Register," from the 
beginning to about 1788, where the volumes my father bor- 
rowed for me from i\Ir. Bentham left off. I felt a lively in- 
terest in Frederic of Prussia during his difficulties, and in 
Paoli, the Corsican patriot ; but when I came to the American 
war, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right 
by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the 
English side. In these frequent talks about the books I read, 
he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and 
ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental 
cultivation, which he required me afterwards to restate to 
him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him 
a verbal account of, many books which would not have inter- 
ested me sufficiently to induce me to read them of myself: 
among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Gov- 
ernment, a book of great merit for its time, and which he 
highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's 
Life of John Knox, and even Sewell and Rutty 's Histories 
of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books 
which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual cir- 
cumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming 
them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memo- 
randa, and Collin's Account of the First Settlement of New 
South Wales. Two books which I never wearied of reading 
were Anson's Voyages, so delightful to most young persons, 
and a collection ( Hawkesworth 's, I believe) of Voyages 
round the World, in four volumes, beginning with Drake 



138 EDUCATION 

and ending with Cook and Bougainville. Of children's books, 
any more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an 
occasional gift from a relation or acquaintance: among those 
I had, Robinson Crusoe was preeminent, and continued to 
delight me through all my boyhood. It was no part, however, 
of my father's system to exclude books of amusement, though 
he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed 
at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; 
those which I remember are the Arabian Nights, Cazotte's 
Arabian Tales, Don Quixote, Miss Edgeworth 's Popular Tales, 
and a book of some reputation in its day, Brooke's Fool of 
Quality. 

In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in con- 
junction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I 
went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my 
father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being 
successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day's 
work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part 
which I greatly disliked ; the more so as I was held responsible 
for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for 
my own: I, however, derived from this discipline the great 
advantage, of learning more thoroughly and retaining more 
lastingly the things which I was set to teach : perhaps, too, the 
practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may 
even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the 
experience of my boyhood is not favourable to the plan of 
teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I 
am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, and I well know that 
the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral 
discipline to either. I went in this manner through the 
Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos 



ACCOEDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 139 

and Csesar's Commentaries, but afterwards added to the su- 
perintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own. 

In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first 
commencement in the Greek poets with the Iliad. After I 
had made some progress in this, my father put Pope 's transla- 
tion into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared 
to read, and it became one of the books in which for many 
years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from 
twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought 
it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to 
boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen en- 
joyment of this briUiant specimen of narrative and versifica- 
tion is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected 
both a priori and from my individual experience. Soon after 
this time I commenced Euclid, and somewhat later, Algebra, 
still under my father's tuition. 

From my eighth to my twelfth year, the Latin books which 
I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first 
six books of the u^neid; all Horace, except the Epodes; the 
Fables of Ph^edrus ; the first five books of Livy (to which from 
my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of 
leisure, the remainder of the first decade) ; all Sallust; a con- 
siderable part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; some plays of Ter- 
ence ; two or three books of Lucretius ; several of the Orations 
of Cicero, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters to 
Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from 
the French the historical explanations in Mingault's notes. 
In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through; one or two 
plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by 
these I profited little; all Thucydides; the Hellenics of 
Xenophon; a great part of Demosthenes, JEschines, and 
Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a 



140 EDUCATION 

little of Dionysius ; several books of Polybius ; and lastly Aris- 
totle 's Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise 
on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and 
containing many of the best observations of the ancients on 
human nature and life, my father made me study with pecu- 
liar care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. 
During the same years I learnt elementary geometry and 
algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus, and other por- 
tions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly : for my 
father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired 
knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for remov- 
ing my difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little 
other aid than that of books: while I was continually incur- 
ring his displeasure by my inability to solve difficult prob- 
lems for which he did not see that I had not the necessary 
previous knowledge.* 

Such were the beginnings of the education of one 
of the ablest intellects. The experience is quite 
as pregnant in lessons concerning the worth of 
individuality of teaching as concerning the native 
ability and moral earnestness of the student. Given 
such teachers as James Mill, such students as John 
Stuart Mill would more frequently be made. 
Happy such students ; happy such teachers ! 

Eegarding certain elements of his educative 
process Mr. Mill also expressed his valuation. 

" Autobiography, pp. 5 ff . 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 141 

In the autobiography he says : 

My own consciousness and experience ultimately led me to 
appreciate quite as highly as he did, the value of an early 
practical familiarity with the school logic. I know of noth- 
ing, in my education, to which I think myself more indebted 
for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first 
intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, 
was dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the 
fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I 
attained, was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exer- 
cise in which I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, 
yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits 
acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments 
of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern 
education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact 
thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propo- 
sitions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous 
terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is noth- 
ing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real 
difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study 
peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philo- 
sophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow proc- 
ess of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable 
thoughts of their own. They may become capable of dis- 
entangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory 
thought, before their own thinking faculties are much ad- 
vanced; a power which, for want of such discipline, many 
otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they have to 
answer opponents, only endeavour, by such arguments as 
they can command, to support the opposite conclusion, 
scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of their 



142 EDUCATION 

antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the ques- 
tion, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one."^ 

But in a more formal way lie also remarks : 

We are far from asserting that the dialectic contests of 
the Greeks, or the public disputations of the Middle Ages 
which succeeded to them, had never any but a beneficial effect ; 
that they had not their snares and their temptations, and that 
the good they effected might not be still better attained by 
other means. But the fact remains that no such means have 
been provided, and that the old training has disappeared, 
even from the Universities, without having been replaced 
by any other. There is no reason why a practice so useful 
for the pursuit of truth should not be employed when the 
attainment of truth is the sole object. We have known this 
most effectually done by a set of young students of philosophy, 
assembling on certain days to read regularly through some 
standard book on psychology, logic, or political economy; 
suspending the reading whenever any one had a difficulty to 
propound or an idea to start, and carrying on the discussion 
from day to day, if necessary for weeks, until the point raised 
had been searched to its inmost depths, and no difficulty or 
obscurity capable of removal by discussion remained. The 
intellectual training given by these debates, and especially the 
habit they gave of leaving no dark corners unexplored — of 
searching out all the d rjoplai, and never passing over any 
unsolved difficulty — has been felt, by those who took part, 
to have been invaluable to them as a mental discipline. There 
would be nothing impracticable in making exercises of this 
kind a standing element of the course of instruction in the 
higher branches of knowledge; if the teachers had any per- 

'Ibid., p. 19. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 143 

ception of the want which such discussions would supply, 
or thought it any part of their business to form thinkers, 
instead of " principling " their pupils (as Locke expresses 
it) with ready-made knowledge. But the saying of James 
Mill, in his essay on Education, is as true now as when it was 
written — that even the theory of education is far behind the 
progress of knowledge, and the practice lamentably behind 
even the theory.® 

The worth of writing as a part of education Mill 
learned at an early age. He learned, of course, too, 
that its worth lay quite entirely in the activity of 
the intellect devoted to the writing. 

In the summer of 1822 I wrote my first argumentative 
essay. I remember very little about it, except that it was 
an attack on what I regarded as the aristocratic prejudice, 
that the rich were, or were likely to be, superior in moral 
qualities to the poor. My performance was entirely argu- 
mentative, without any of the declamation which the subject 
would admit of, and might be expected to suggest to a young 
writer. In that department however I was, and remained, 
very inapt. Dry argument was the only thing I could manage, 
or williDgly attempted; though passively I was very sus- 
ceptible to the effect of all composition, whether in the form 
of poetry or oratory, which appealed to the feelings on any 
basis of reason. My father, who knew nothing of this essay 
until it was finished, was well satisfied, and as I learnt from 
others, even pleased with it; but, perhaps from a desire to 
promote the exercise of other mental faculties than the purely 
logical, he advised me to make my next exercise in composi- 

"'* Dissertations and Discussions," Vol. V., p. 212. 



144 EDUCATION 

tion one of the oratorical kind : on which suggestion, availing 
myself of my familiarity with Greek history and ideas and with 
the Athenian orators, I wrote two speeches, one an accusation, 
the other a defence of Pericles, on a supposed impeachment 
for not marching out to fight the Lacedemonians on their in- 
vasion of Attica. After this I continued to write papers on 
subjects often very much beyond my capacity, but with great 
benefit both from the exercise itself, and from the discussions 
which it led to with my father.^ 

Mill also at an early age had been accustomed, 
under Ms father's criticism, to make abstracts, 
which he believes to be of much value in compell- 
ing exactness in thinking and in expression. 

Mill in several ways and under many forms in- 
dicates his assent to the theory which makes educa- 
tion consist in training rather than in the accmnula- 
tion of knowledge. His conception is that the en- 
gine, and not the storehouse, is the proper educa- 
tional symbol. 

Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled 
into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but 
overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with 
the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted 
as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own: 
and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have spared no 
pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of 
what they have learnt, incapable of using their minds except 

"Autobiography, p. 71. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 145 

in the furrows traced for them. Mine, however, was not an 
education of cram. My father never permitted anything 
which I learnt to degenerate into a mere exercise of memory. 
He strove to make the understanding not only go along with 
every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Any- 
thing which could be found out by thinking I never was told, 
until I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself. 
As far as I can trust my remembrance, I acquitted myself 
very lamely in this department; my recollection of such mat- 
ters is almost wholly of failures, hardly ever of success. It 
is true the failures were often in things in which success in 
so early a stage of my progress, was almost impossible. I 
remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my hap- 
pening to use the word idea, he asked me what an idea was; 
and expressed some displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to 
define the word< I recollect also his indignation at my using 
the common expression that something was true in theory but 
required correction in practice; and how, after making me 
vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its mean- 
ing, and showed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech 
which I had used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being 
unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in speaking 
of it as something which might be at variance with practice, 
I had shown unparalleled ignorance. In this he seems, and 
perhaps was, very unreasonable; but I think only in being 
angry at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever 
demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.^^ 

Mill is a critic as well as an interpreter of his 
own education. He is free to point out its weak- 
nesses as well as its elements of strength. 

*'Ibid., p. 31. 



146 EDUCATION 

The deficiencies in my education were principally in the 
things which boys learn from being turned out to shift for 
themselves, and from being brought together in large num- 
bers. From temperance and much walking, I grew up healthy 
and hardy, though not muscular; but I could do no feats 
of skill or physical strength, and knew none of the ordinary 
bodily exercises. It was not that play, or time for it, was 
refused me. Though no holidays were allowed, lest the habit 
of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired, 
I had ample leisure in every day to amuse myself; but as I 
had no boy companions, and the animal need of physical 
activity was satisfied by walking, my amusements, which were 
mostly solitary, were in general, of a quiet, if not a bookish 
turn, and gave little stimulus to any other kind even of men- 
tal activity than that which was already called forth by my 
studies: I consequently remained long, and in a less degree 
have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual 
dexterity; my mind, as well as my hands, did its work very 
lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, 
to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest 
of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which 
whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself: I 
was constantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, 
and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My 
father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his 
senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he car- 
ried decision and energy of character in his whole manner 
and into every action of life: and this, as much as his tal- 
ents, contributed to the strong impression which he always 
made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. 
But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up un- 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 147 

energetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents 
are energetic for them. The education which my father gave 
me, was in itself much more fitted for training me to know 
than to do. Not that he was unaware of my deficiencies ; both 
as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly smarting under 
his severe admonitions on the subject. There was anything 
but insensibility or tolerance on his part towards such short- 
comings : but, while he saved me from the demoralizing effects 
of school life, he made no effort to provide me with any suffi- 
cient substitute for its practicalizing influences. ^^ 

The conception which one who suffered such an 
education holds in respect to the normal elements, 
methods, forces and results of education, cannot 
be other than interesting. From education of any 
type, most men, even if capable of receiving such 
a type of it, would finally and absolutely have re- 
volted. Mill, on the contrary, not only rejoiced in 
this type, but also, indirectly at least, and in some 
respects, directly, has proved the type to be a minis- 
ter of the great science and art of intellectual cul- 
ture. Toleration was indeed a mark of his charac- 
ter. His interpretations of education are of the 
severe type of which his own training furnishes the 
most illustrious example. His generalizations are, 
therefore, of precious worth and impressiveness. 

In a letter written in the year 1852, he says : 

^Ibid., p. 35. 



148 EDUCATION 

What the poor as well as the rich require is not to be in- 
doctrinated, is not to be taught other people's opinions, but 
to be induced and enabled to think for themselves. It is not 
physical science that will do this, even if they could learn 
it much more thoroughly than they are able to do. After 
reading, writing, and arithmetic (the last a most important 
discipline in habits of accuracy and precision, in which they 
are extremely deficient), the desirable thing for them seems 
to be the most miscellaneous information, and the most 
varied exercise of their faculties. They cannot read too much. 
Quantity is of more importance than quality, especially all 
reading which relates to human life and the ways of man- 
kind; geography, voyages and travels, manners and customs, 
and romances, which must tend to awaken their imagination 
and give them some of the meaning of self-devotion and hero- 
ism, in short, to unbrutalise them. By such reading they 
would become, to a certain extent, cultivated beings, which 
they would not become by following out, even to the great- 
est length, physical science. As for education in the best sense 
of the term, I fear they have a long time to wait for it. The 
higher and middle classes cannot educate the working classes 
unless they are first educated themselves. The miserable pre- 
tence of education, which those classes now receive, does not 
form minds fit to undertake the guidance of other minds, 
or to exercise a beneficent influence over them by personal 
contact. Still, any person who sincerely desires whatever is 
for the good of all, however it may affect himself or his own 
class, and who regards the great social questions as matters 
of reason and discussion and not as settled long ago, may, I 
believe, do a certain amount of good by merely saying to the 
working classes whatever he sincerely thinks on the subjects 
on which they are interested. Free discussion with them as 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 149 

equals, in speech and in writing, seems the best instruction 
that can be given them, specially on social subjects.^^ 

In the great St. Andrews address, one of the 
weightiest educational addresses ever made, he also 
says : 

What professional men should carry away with them from 
a University, is not professional knowledge, but that which 
should direct the use of their professional knowledge, and 
bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technicali- 
ties of a special pursuit. Men may be competent lawyers 
without general education, but it depends on general educa- 
tion to make them philosophic lawyers — ^who demand, and 
are capable of apprehending, principles, instead of merely 
cramming their memory with details. And so of all other 
useful pursuits, mechanical included. Education makes a 
man a more intelligent shoemaker, if that be his occupa- 
tion, but not by teaching him how to make shoes; it does 
so by the mental exercise it gives, and the habits it impresses. 

This, then, is what a mathematician would call the higher 
limit of University education: its province ends where edu- 
cation, ceasing to be general, branches off into departments 
adapted to the individual's destination in. life. The lower 
limit is more llifficult to define. A University is not concerned 
with elementary instruction: the pupil is supposed to have 
acquired that before coming here. But where does elemen- 
tary instruction end, and the higher studies begin? Some 
have given a very wide extension to the idea of elementary 
instruction. According to them, it is not the office of a 
University to give instruction in single branches of knowl- 

" ''Letters/' Vol. I., p. 165. 



150 EDUCATION 

edge from the commencement. What the pupil should be 
taught here (they think), is to methodise his knowledge: to 
look at every separate part of it in its relation to the other 
parts, and to the whole; combining the partial glimpses 
which he has obtained of the field of human knowledge at 
diiferent points, into a general map, if I may so speak, of 
the entire region; observing how all knowledge is connected, 
how we ascend to one branch by means of another, how the 
higher modifies the lower, and the lower helps us to under- 
stand the higher; how every existing reality is a compound 
of many properties, of which each science or distinct mode 
of study reveals but a small part, but the whole of which 
must be included to enable us to know it truly as a fact 
in Nature, and not as a mere abstraction.^^ 

It is well, moreover, to use different types of 
education. These types should be as di:^erent as 
are the types of mind which are to be educated, 
and as are the forms of human service to which 
these same minds are ultimately to devote them- 
selves. In the essay on ^^ Liberty" is found an 
application of one of its great principles to the 
subject of education. 

All that has been said of the importance of individuality 
of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, 
involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity 
of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance 
for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as 
the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the 

"Eectorial Addresses, University of St. Andrews, p. 21. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 151 

predominant power in the government, whether this be a 
monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or the majority of the 
existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and suc- 
cessful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by 
natural tendency to one over the body. An education es- 
tablished and controlled by the State, should only exist, if it 
exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, car- 
ried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the 
others up to a certain standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, 
when society in general is in so backward a state that it could 
not or would not provide for itself any proper institutions of 
education, unless the government undertook the task; then, 
indeed, the government may, as the less of two great evils, 
take upon itself the business of schools and universities, as it 
may that of joint-stock companies, when private enterprise, 
in a shape fitted for undertaking great works of industry does 
not exist in the country. But in general, if the country con- 
tains a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide edu- 
cation under government auspices, the same persons would 
be able and willing to give an equally good education on the 
voluntary principle, under the assurance of remuneration 
afforded by a law rendering education compulsory, combined 
with State aid to those unable to defray the expense." 

In the same impressive essay it is also discrimi- 
nated : 

As much compression as is necessary to prevent the stronger 
specimens of human nature from encroaching on the rights 
of others, cannot be dispensed with; but for this there is 
ample compensation even in the point of view of human de- 

"''On Liberty," Ticknor & Fields, 1863, p. 205. 



152 EDUCATION 

velopment. The means of development which the individual 
loses by being prevented from gratifying his inclinations to 
the injury of others, are chiefly obtained at the expense of the 
development of other people. And even to himself there is 
a full equivalent in the better development of the social part 
of his nature, rendered possible by the restraint put upon 
the selfish paii;. To be held to rigid rules of justice for the 
sake of others, develops the feelings and capacities which 
have the good of others for their object. But to be restrained 
in things not affecting their good, by their mere displeasure, 
developes nothing valuable, except such force of character 
as may unfold itself in resisting the restraint. If acquiesced 
in, it dulls and blunts the whole nature. To give any fair 
play to the nature of each, it is essential that different persons 
should be allowed to lead different lives. In proportion as 
this latitude has been exercised in any age, has that age been 
noteworthy to posterity. Even despotism does not produce 
its worst effects, so long as Individuality exists under it; 
and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever 
name it may be called, and whether it professes to be en- 
forcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.^^ 

Beginning with such a teacher as his father was, 
Mill is inclined to emphasize the extreme worth of 
the teacher and of proper methods of teaching. A 
very modern note is struck, and in a most vital and 
impressive way. For, in writing to Huxley in the 
year of 1865, he says : 

^'IMd., p. 121. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUAET MILL 153 

When I said that our educational system needs other modi- 
fications still more than it needs the due introduction of 
modern languages and physical science, what I had strongly 
in view was improvements in the mode of teaching. It is dis- 
graceful to human nature and society that the whole of boy- 
hood should be spent in pretending to learn certain things 
without learning them. With proper methods and good 
teachers boys might really learn Greek and Latin instead of 
making believe to learn them, and might have ample time 
besides for science, and for as much of modern languages 
as there is any use in teaching to them while at school. And 
if science were taught as badly as Greek and Latin are taught, 
it would not do their minds more good.^^ 

Of course it is most evident that the education 
with which Mill is largely concerned is preemi- 
nently intellectual. The author of the ^^ Logic" 
leads in the belief of the discipline of the intellect. 
To him reasoning represents the process and the 
end of education. In various places and under 
diverse forms he indicates his fundamental con- 
ceptions. 

In the ''Logic" he affirms that: 

The only complete safeguard against reasoning ill, is the 
habit of reasoning well; familiarity with the principles of 
correct reasoning, and practice in applying those principles. 
It is, however, not unimportant to consider what are the 
most common modes of bad reasoning; by what appearances 

"^'Letters," Vol. II., p. 43. 



154 EDUCATION 

the mind is most likely to be seduced from the observance 
of true principles of induction; what, in short, are the most 
common and most dangerous varieties of Apparent Evidence, 
whereby persons are misled into opinions for which there 
does not exist evidence really conclusive.^^ 

Logic in even a narrow sense as a part of educa- 
tion holds a high place in the thought of John 
Stuart Mill: 

Logic is, what it was so expressively called by the school- 
men and by Bacon, ars artium; the science of science itself. 
All science consists of data and conclusions from those data, 
of proofs and what they prove: now logic points out what 
relations must subsist between data and whatever can be con- 
cluded from them, between proof and every thing which it 
can prove. If there be any such indispensable relations, and 
if these can be precisely determined, every particular branch 
of science, as well as every individual in the guidance of his 
conduct, is bound to conform to those relations, under the 
penalty of making false inferences — of drawing conclusions 
which are not grounded in the realities of things. Whatever 
has at any time been concluded justly, whatever knowledge 
has been acquired otherwise than by immediate intuition, de- 
pended on the observance of the laws which it is the prov- 
ince of logic to investigate. If the conclusions are just, and 
the knowledge real, those laws, whether known or not, have 
been observed. 

We need not, therefore, seek any further for a solution of 
the question, so often agitated, respecting the utility of logic. 
If a science of logic exists, or is capable of existing, it must 

"''A System of Logic," p. 513. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 155 

be useful. If there be rules to which every mind consciously 
or unconsciously conforms in every instance in which it infers 
rightly, there seems little necessity for discussing whether a 
person is more likely to observe those rules, when he knows 
the rules, than when he is unacquainted with them.^^ 

Logic, therefore, represents a most important 
part in the educational program. It lays down 
laws for the discovery of truth and it makes known 
the conditions which must attend the search. If 
it is too broad, ratiocination helps in right reason- 
ing from premises, and induction aids in drawing 
proper conclusions from observation. Logic in 
both these relations helps us to exactness. It blows 
away, like the wind, vague and hazy thinking. It 
promotes clearness. It induces clearness of think- 
ing by orderly thinl^ing. 

Of a form of logic as seen in Plato, Mr. Mill has 
hearty appreciation. He says : 

The Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are 
the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correct- 
ing the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the 
intellectus sibi permissus, the understanding which has made 
up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of pop- 
ular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by which 
the man of vague generalities is constrained either to express 
his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to confess that 

"/6t(2., p. 22. 



156 EDUCATION 

he does not know what he is talking about; the perpetual 
testing of all general statements by particular instances; the 
siege in form which is laid to the meaning of large abstract 
terms, by fixing upon some still larger class-name which 
includes that and more, and dividing down to the thing sought 
— marking out its limits and definition by a series of accu- 
rately drawn distinctions between it and each of the cognate 
objects which are successively parted off from it — all this, as 
an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and all this, 
even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of 
my own mind.^^ 

In this intellectual training, several subjects be- 
sides logic are included which have a specific value. 
The St. Andrews address interprets these subjects 
with the most satisfactory fullness. Of this ad- 
dress, Henry Fawcett said : 

The mathematician said that he had never seen the advan- 
tages to be derived from the study of Mathematics so abso- 
lutely and so forcibly described. ^^ 

The same remark was also made by a classicist 
about the classics, and, by a physiologist, about 
natural science. In his interpretation of the an- 
cient classics, as set forth in the unique St. Andrews 
speech. Mill believes it is necessary to know the 
Greek and Latin languages and literatures, if one 

" Autobiography, p. 21. 
""John Stuart Mill: Twelve Sketches by Herbert Spencer, Henry 
Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and other distinguished authors, p. 80. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 157 

is to think in Greek or in Latin. It is also neces- 
sary to know the language and its writings, if one 
is to know ancient history. Secondary or easy im- 
pressions and interpretations are incorrect. In 
knowing an ancient language one lays in a stock 
of thought and observation and becomes familiar 
with the principal literary compositions which the 
human mind has produced. Moreover, one receives 
the most valuable discipline of the intellect. The 
structure of these languages, at once so regular and 
so complex, leads to this result. The grammar of 
the Greek language illustrates this method and 
effect. Grammar is logic, analysis, synthesis and 
relationship. It demands discriminations, precise 
and accurate. It obliges thinking. 

The ancient classics, moreover, are the accumu- 
lated treasures of wisdom. The experiences of 
human nature and conduct are in them gathered 
together. These results in speech and history, in 
dialogue, essay, poetry and philosophy are the 
stores of the best ancient civilization. The end of 
education is here set forth. The truths of meta- 
physics are here explained. The methods of the 
search for truth are here interpreted, illustrated, 
and applied. 

The form, too, as well as the content of these 



158 EDUCATION 

examples of ancient tliougM, approaches the high- 
est perfection. The literature of Greece is the 
noblest. It has no rival. The ancients were neither 
hurried nor self-conscious as are the moderns. 
Their style represents good sense, without trickery 
or deceit. They use words with meanings, with 
clearness and fitness. They were not discursive, 
but intrinsic and essential. They chose right words 
for right thought and put them in the right places. 
They have neither too much nor too little. Their 
literature finds a type in their sculptures. They 
are not prolix. They are condensed and brief be- 
cause they took pains. The acquaintance of the 
moderns with these ancient masterpieces would 
make the moderns more masterful. 

But the argument for the study of the sciences 
is hardly less weighty. The sciences give informa- 
tion. They tell us of the world in which we live, 
and they tell us of ourselves. Truth, the search for 
which is the most important employment of man, 
is made known by observation and reasoning. 
Methods for research and for the discovery of 
truth have been carried to their highest point of 
usefulness in the sciences. If ancient literature is 
an illustration of the art of expression, the modern 
sciences are the finished illustration of the art of 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 159 

thinking. Mathematics stands for reasoning, phy- 
sical science for observation. Models, rules and 
principles for weighing evidence, which is the es- 
sence of thinking, are most effectively proved in 
the sciences. The mathematical sciences, pure and 
complete, help one to understand and to express 
the premises of reasoning and also to keep in mind 
the proper process arising from these premises. 
The physical sciences, which are not mathematical, 
like chemistry, teach methods of rounding-out 
truth by observation and experiment. Reasoning 
by induction and reasoning by deduction are like- 
wise taught by these studies. In his examination 
of Hamilton, Mill speaks particularly of mathe- 
matics as habituating the student to precision. It 
demands observation, and exactness in observation. 
It teaches the value of quantities. It also expresses 
the necessity of progressive reasoning. It requires 
sure footing before and as each step is taken. 

Neither is physiology nor psychology to be 
omitted. The knowledge of one's body, of one's 
mind, is evidently of much value. To understand 
one's self is a natural wish. It also is a means 
of preventing disaster and disease of all sorts, and 
of promoting health. The moral conditions of life 
have close relations with the physiological and the 



160 EDUCATION 

psychological facts. Man's own nature in both 
higher and lower relations is most deserving of 
study. Moreover, metaphysical controversies are 
among the powerful forces for giving intellectual 
discipline. Metaphysical reading and thinking are 
profitable for all students. 

The author of the classical political economy ad- 
vises, furthermore, the study of this subject as a 
guidance for life and for the interpretation of 
laws, institutions and affairs human. The study 
of ethics, of politics, of history, moreover, aids in 
the humanizing of the student, equipping him for 
his duty as a student and as a future citizen. Juris- 
prudence and international law, likewise, represent 
those principles which underlie the conduct of in- 
dividuals and of nations, and embody those methods 
by which individuals and nations may and should 
live together and do prosper. 

But education, whatever its content, fails to be- 
come a proper disciplinary force, unless it be put 
into practise. Truth is to lead to duty. Intellect 
is to train conscience, and conscience to direct and 
incite the will. 

Besides intellectual and moral education, esthet- 
ics is not to suffer neglect. In England, two causes 
have contributed to the elimination of the science 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUAET MILL 163 

of the beautiful from the educational process, — 
money-making and puritanism. But poetry, paint- 
ing, sculpture and the other fine arts, are never to 
be interpreted as qualities. They embody the truth 
of that early saying of Goethe, that ^Hhe beautiful 
is greater than the good, for it includes the good." 
The beautiful is the good made practical. The 
examples of the beautiful give quickening, appre- 
ciation and self -culture. They stir feeling, enlarge 
thought, and ennoble life unto the highest. 

Yet these severer studies do not alone constitute 
the elements of the educational process. Of the 
value of poetry in this program Mill writes with 
deep sympathy. In particular does he write of the 
great ministry of Wordsworth to both his mind and 
heart: 

In the first place, these poems addressed themselves power- 
fully to one of the strongest of my pleasurable susceptibili- 
ties, the love of rural objects and natural scenery; to which 
I had been indebted not only for much of the pleasure of my 
life, but quite recently for relief from one of my longest re- 
lapses into depression. In this power of rural beauty over 
me, there was a foundation laid for taking pleasure in Words- 
worth 's poetry ; the more so, as his scenery lies mostly among 
mountains, which, owing to my early Pyrenean excursion, 
were my ideal of natural beauty. But Wordsworth would 
never have had any great effect on me, if he had merely 



162 EDUCATION 

placed before me beautiful pictures of natural scenery. Scott 
does this still better than Wordsworth, and a very second- 
rate landscape does it more effectually than any poet. What 
made Wordsworth's poems a medicine for my state of mind, 
was that they expressed, not mere outward beauty, but states 
of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, under the ex- 
citement of beauty. They seemed to be the very culture of 
the feelings, which I was in quest of. In them I seemed to 
draw from a source of inward joy, of sympathetic and imagi- 
native pleasure, which could be shared in by all human be- 
ings ; which had no connexion with struggle or imperfection, 
but would be made richer by every improvement in the 
physical or social condition of mankind. From them I seemed 
to learn what would be the perennial sources of happiness, 
when all the greater evils of life shall have been removed. 
And I felt myself at once better and happier as I came under 
their influence.^^ 

But the education of the intellect and of the 
imagination does not complete the whole of educa- 
tion, for man is more than intellectual. Man has 
feelings and a heart. He is a social being, and, as 
a social being, faculties other than intellectual have 
their place. Man is also a doer and an executive. 
He is a moral being and a religious soul. He has 
a will. He, also, is endowed with the capacity for 
seeing the beautiful and sublime. He is an esthetic 
being. Education is comprehensive of the whole 

'* Autobiography, p. 147. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 163 

nature of the individual and of all the relations 
which the individual embodies. 

The intellect, moreover, is not cultured by itself 
alone, either as a condition or as a force. It re- 
ceives enrichment from the feelings. As Mill says 
in the Autobiography: 

I had now learnt by experience that the passive susceptibili- 
ties needed to be cultivated as well as the active capacities, 
and required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided. 
I did not, for an instant, lose sight of, or undervalue, that 
part of the truth which I had seen before; I never turned 
recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to consider the 
power and practice of analysis as an essential condition both 
of individual and of social improvement. But I thought that 
it had consequences which required to be corrected, by join- 
ing other kinds of cultivation with it. The maintenance 
of a due balance among the faculties, now seemed to me of 
primary importance. The cultivation of the feelings be- 
came one of the cardinal points in my ethical and philosophi- 
cal creed. And my thoughts and inclinations turned in an 
increasing degree towards whatever seemed capable of being 
instrumental to that object. 

I now began to find meaning in the things which I had 
read or heard about the importance of poetry and art as 
instruments of human culture. But it was some time longer 
before I began to know this by personal experience. The 
only one of the imaginative arts in which I had from child- 
hood taken great pleasure, was music; the best effect of 
which (and in this it surpasses perhaps every other art) 
consists in exciting enthusiasm; in winding up to a high 



164 EDUCATION 

piteli those feelings of an elevated kind which are already 
in the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow and 
a fervour, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is 
precious for sustaining them at other times.^^ 

It is furthermore to be remembered that the 
intellect and every part of one's being are cul- 
tivated by human association. In education the 
social relations of man have not received sufficient 
emphasis. The value of great men, men of great 
manners and noble qualities, in this general cul- 
tivation, is of the highest consequence. 

Great men, and great actions, are seldom wasted; they 
send forth a thousand unseen influences, more effective than 
those which are seen; and though nine out of every ten 
things done, with a good purpose, by those who are in ad- 
vance of their age, produce no material effect, the tenth 
thing produces effects twenty times as great as any one 
would have dreamed of predicting from it. Even the men 
who for want of sufficiently favorable circumstances left no 
impress at all upon their own age, have often been of the 
greatest value to posterity. Who could appear to have lived 
more entirely in vain than some of the early heretics? They 
were burned or massacred, their writings extirpated, their 
memory anathematized, and their very names and existence 
left for seven or eight centuries in the obscurity of musty 
manuscripts — their history to be gathered, perhaps, only from 
the sentences by which they were condemned. Yet the mem- 
ory of these men — men who resisted certain pretensions or 

^Ibid., p. 143. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 165 

certain dogmas of the Church in the very age in which the 
unanimous assent of Christendom was afterward claimed as 
having been given to them, and asserted as the ground of 
their authority — broke the chain of tradition, established a 
series of precedents for resistance, inspired later Reformers 
with the courage, and armed them with the weapons, which 
they needed when mankind were better prepared to follow 
their impulse.^^ 

In this relationship, too, of social education, Mr. 
Mill believes in the value of the fellowship of 
equals. This value is reinforced by his own ex- 
perience. He says : 

It was in the winter of 1822-3 that I formed the plan of a 
little society, to be composed of young men agreeing in funda- 
mental principles — acknowledging Utility as their standard 
in ethics and politics, and a certain number of the principal 
corollaries drawn from it in the philosophy I had accepted — 
and meeting once a fortnight to read essays and discuss ques- 
tions conformably to the premises thus agreed on.^* 

But association with one's superiors or with 
one's equals is not the only method of gaining 
cultivation. Cultivation is also to be gained from 
executive work. The will and its expression react 
upon the intellectual faculties. If efficiency springs 
from these faculties, it tends in turn those same 
faculties to develop and to expand. 

*«*'A System of Logic," p. 650. 
** Autobiography, p. 79. 



166 EDUCATION 

In the Autobiography it is said : 

I am disposed to agree with what has been surmised by 
others, that the opportunity which my official position gave 
me of learning by personal observation the necessary condi- 
tions of the practical conduct of public affairs, has been of 
considerable value to me as a theoretical reformer of the 
opinions and institutions of my time. Not, indeed, that 
public business transacted on paper, to take effect on the 
other side of the globe, was of itself calculated to give much 
practical knowledge of life. But the occupation accustomed 
me to see and hear the difficulties of every course, and the 
means of obviating them, stated and discussed deliberately 
with a view to execution; it gave me opportunities of per- 
ceiving when public measures, and other political facts, did 
not produce the effects which had been expected of them, 
and from what causes; above all, it was valuable to me by 
making me, in this portion of my activity, merely one wheel 
in a machine, the whole of which had to work together. As 
a speculative writer, I should have had no one to consult 
but myself, and should have encountered in my speculations 
none of the obstacles which would have started up whenever 
they came to be applied to practice. But as a Secretary con- 
ducting political correspondence, I could not issue an order 
or express an opinion, without satisfying various persons very 
unlike myself, that the thing was fit to be done. I was thus 
in a good position for finding out by practice the mode of 
putting a thought which gives it easiest admittance into minds 
not prepared for it by habit; while I because practically 
conversant with the difficulties of moving bodies of men, the 
necessities of compromise, the art of sacrificing the 
non-essential to preserve the essential. I learnt how to ob- 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 167 

tain the best I could, when I could not obtain everything; 
instead of being indignant or dispirited because I could not 
have entirely my own way, to be pleased and encouraged when 
I could have the smallest part of it; and when even that 
could not be, to bear with complete equanimity the being 
overruled altogether. I have found, through life, these acqui- 
sitions to be of the greatest possible importance for per- 
sonal happiness, and they are also a very necessary condi- 
tion for enabling any one, either as theorist or as practical 
man, to effect the greatest amount of good compatible with 
his opportunities.^^ 

In one of the great essays it is also said : 

It is by action that the faculties are called forth, more than 
by words; more, at least, than by words unaccompanied by 
action. We want schools in which the children of the poor 
should learn to use, not only their hands, but their minds 
for the guidance of their hands; in which they should be 
trained to the actual adaptation of means to ends; should 
become familiar with the accomplishment of the same ob- 
ject by various processes, and be made to apprehend with 
their intellects in what consists the difference between the 
right way of performing industrial operations and the wrong. 
Meanwhile, they would acquire, not only manual dexterity, 
but habits of order and regularity, of the utmost use in after- 
life, and which have more to do with the formation of char- 
acter than many persons are aware of. Such things would 
do much more than is usually believed towards converting 
these neglected creatures into rational beings, — beings ca- 
pable of foresight, accessible to reasons and motives ad- 

*'Ibid., pp. 84-86. 



168 EDUCATION 

dressed to their understanding, and therefore not governed 
by the utterly senseless modes of feeling and action which so 
much astonish educated and observing persons when brought 
into contact with them. 

But when education, in this its narrow sense, has done its 
best, and even to enable it to do its best, an education of 
another sort is required, such as schools cannot give. What 
is taught to a child at school will be of little effect, if the cir- 
cumstances which surround the grown man or woman con- 
tradict the lesson. We may cultivate his understanding; but 
what if he cannot employ it without becoming discontented 
with his position, and disaffected to the whole order of things 
in which he is cast? Society educates the poor, for good or 
for ill, by its conduct to them, even more than by direct 
teaching. A sense of this truth is the most valuable feature 
in the new philanthropic agitation ; and the recognition of it 
is important, whatever mistakes may be at first made in 
practically applying it.^^ 

Eegarding the necessity, moreover, of moral 
education, and, indeed, of religious. Mill is not 
silent. He says, at length : 

My father's moral convictions, wholly dissevered from re- 
ligion, were very much of the character of those of the Greek 
philosophers; and were delivered with the force and decision 
which characterized all that came from him. Even at the 
very early age at which I read with him the Memorabilia of 
Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from his comments 
a deep respect for the character of Socrates; who stood in 
my mind as a model of ideal excellence: and I well remem- 

*** Dissertations and Discussions/' Vol. IL, p. 282. 



ACCOEDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 169 

ber how my father at that time impressed upon me the 
lesson of the ''Choice of Hercules." At a somewhat later 
period the lofty moral standard exhibited in the writings of 
Plato operated upon me with great force. My father's moral 
inculcations were at all times mainly those of the ''Socratici 
viri;" justice, temperance (to which he gave a very extended 
application), veracity, perseverance, readiness to encounter 
pain and especially labour; regard for the public good; esti- 
mation of persons according to their merits, and of things 
according to their intrinsic usefulness; a life of exertion in 
contradiction to one of self-indulgent ease and sloth. These 
and other moralities he conveyed in brief sentences, uttered 
as occasion arose, of grave exhortation, or stem reprobation 
and contempt. 

But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect does 
more; and the effect my father produced on my character, 
did not depend solely on what he said or did with that direct 
object, but also, and still more, on what manner of man 
he was.^^ 

In a letter, too, written in 1849, to W. J. Fox^ 
he says : 

I would omit the words including moral instruction. What 
the sort of people who will have the management of any 
such schools mean by moral instruction, is much the same 
thing as what they mean by religious instruction, only low- 
ered to the world's practice. It means cramming the chil- 
dren directly with all the common professions about what is 
right and wrong, and about the worth of different objects 
in life, and filling them indirectly with the spirit of all the 

"Autobiography, pp. 46-47. 



170 EDUCATION 

notions on such matters which vulgar-minded people are in 
the habit of acting on without consciously professing. I 
know it is impossible to prevent much of this from being 
done — but the less of it there is the better, and I would not 
set people upon doing more of it than they might otherwise 
do, by insisting expressly on moral instruction. 

If it were possible to provide for giving real moral instruc- 
tion it would be worth more than all else that schools can 
do. But no programme of moral instruction, which would 
be really good, would have a chance of being assented to 
or followed by the manager of a general scheme of public 
instruction in the present state of people's minds.^^ 

Mr. Mill holds definite ideas in respect to the 
value of religion, whether that religion be Christian 
or Buddhistic. In his essay on the Utility of Reli- 
gion, he contrasts the power of education with the 
power of religion. The contrast relates to one peo- 
ple, and to one people only. With a generality 
of statement, which he seldom allows himself, he 
says: 

The power of education is almost boundless: there is not 
one natural inclination which it is not strong enough to 
coerce, and, if needful, to destroy by disuse. In the greatest 
recorded victory which education has ever achieved over 
a whole host of natural inclinations in an entire people — 
the maintenance through centuries of the institutions of 
Lycurgus, — it was very little, if even at all, indebted to 
religion: for the Gods of the Spartans were the same as 

=«'' Letters,^ 'Vol. I., p. 150. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 171 

those of other Greek states; and though, no doubt, every 
state of Greece believed that its particular polity had at 
its first establishment, some sort of divine sanction (mostly 
that of the Delphian oracle), there was seldom any difficulty 
in obtaining the same or an equally powerful sanction for a 
change. . . . The case of Greece is, I believe, the only one 
in which any teaching, other than religious, has had the 
unspeakable advantage of forming the basis of education : and 
though much may be said against the quality of some part 
of the teaching, very little can be said against its effective- 
ness. The most memorable example of the power of educa- 
tion over conduct, is afforded (as I have just remarked) by 
this exceptional case ; constituting a strong presumption that 
in other cases, early religious teaching has owed its power 
over mankind rather to its being early than to its being 
religious.^^ 

In estimating the worth of education of all types 
and content, happiness is to be selected as a stand- 
ard. The principle is the old utilitarian one, 
largely interpreted, that that education is of the 
most worth which gives the greatest happiness to 
the greatest number of persons. 

In the ^' Logic" it is said: 

I do not mean to assert that the promotion of happiness 
should be itself the end of all actions, or even all rules of 
action. It is the justification, and ought to be the controller, 
of aU ends, but it is not itself the sole end. There are many 
virtuous actions, and even virtuous modes of action (though 

*» * ' Three Essays on Eeligion, ^ ' pp. 82-83. 



172 EDUCATION 

the cases are, I tliink, less frequent than is often supposed), 
by which happiness in the particular instance is sacrificed, 
more pain being produced than pleasure. But the conduct of 
which this can be truly asserted, admits of justification only 
because it can be shown that, on the whole, more happiness 
will exist in the world, if feelings are cultivated which will 
make people, in certain cases, regardless of happiness. I 
fully admit that this is true ; that the cultivation of an ideal 
nobleness of will and conduct should be to individual human 
beings an end, to which the specific pursuit either of their 
own happiness or of that of others (except so far as included 
in that idea) should, in any case of conflict, give way. But I 
hold that the very question, what constitutes this elevation 
of character, is itself to be decided by a reference to hap- 
piness as the standard. The character itself should be, to 
the individual, a paramount end, simply because the exist- 
ence of this ideal nobleness of character, or of a near ap- 
proach to it, in any abundance, would go farther than all 
things else toward making human life happy, both in 
the comparatively humble sense of pleasure and freedom from 
pain, and in the higher meaning, of rendering life, not what 
it now is almost universally, puerile and insignificant, but 
such as human beings with highly developed faculties can 
care to have.^° 

It is furthermore to be remembered that educa- 
tion is designed to breed and to train great men. 
If the large plateau of general culture needs lifting, 
the need is great of the raising of the Himalaya 
peaks of thought and of power. 

*"''A System of Logic," p. 658. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 173 

In the essay on ^'Liberty" it is interpreted: 

In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even 
paid, to real or supposed mental superiority, the general tend- 
ency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity 
the ascendant power among mankind. In ancient history, in 
the Middle Ages, and in a diminishing degree through the 
long transition from feudality to the present time, the indi- 
vidual was a power in himself; and if he had either great 
talents or a high social position, he was a considerable power. 
At present individuals are lost in the crowd. In politics 
it is almost a triviality to say that public opinion now rules 
the world. The only power deserving the name is that of 
masses, and of governments while they make themselves the 
organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses. This is as 
true in the moral and social relations of private life as in 
public transactions. Those whose opinions go by the 
name of public opinion, are not always the same sort of 
public : in America, they are the whole white population ; in 
England, chiefly the middle class. But they are always a 
mass, that is to say, collective mediocrity. And what is a 
still greater novelty, the mass do not now take their opinions 
from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible lead- 
ers, or from books. Their thinking is done for them by men 
much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their 
name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. 
I am not complaining of all this. I do not assert that any- 
thing better is compatible, as a general rule, with the pres- 
ent low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder 
the government of mediocrity from being mediocre govern- 
ment. No government by a democracy or a numerous aris- 
tocracy, either in its political acts or in the opinions, quali- 



174 EDUCATION 

ties, and tone of mind which it fosters, ever did or could rise 
above mediocrity, except in so far as the sovereign Many 
have let themselves be guided (which in their best times they 
always have done) by the counsels and influence of a more 
highly gifted and instructed One or Few. The initiation of 
all wise or noble things, comes and must come from indi- 
viduals; generally at first from some one individual. The 
honor and glory of the average man is that he is capable of 
following that initiative; that he can respond internally to 
wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes open. 
I am not countenancing the sort of ''hero-worship" which 
applauds the strong man of genius for forcibly seizing on 
the government of the world and making it do his bidding in 
spite of itself. All he can claim is, freedom to point out the 
way. The power of compelling others into it, is not only 
inconsistent with the freedom and development of all the 
rest, but corrupting to the strong man himself. It does seem, 
however, that when the opinions of masses of merely average 
men are everywhere become or becoming the dominant power, 
the counterpoise and corrective to that tendency would be, 
the more and more pronounced individuality of those who 
stand on the higher eminences of thought. It is in these 
circumstances most especially, that exceptional individuals, 
instead of being deterred, should be encouraged in acting dif- 
ferently from the masses. In other times there was no ad- 
vantage in their doing so, unless they acted not only differ- 
ently, but better. In this age the mere example of non-con- 
formity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself 
a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such 
as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order 
to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccen- 
tric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUAET MILL 175 

strength of character has abounded; and the amount of ec- 
centricity in a society has generally been proportional to the 
amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it 
contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the 
chief danger of the time.^^ 

In one of the early essays, less great than the 
** Liberty," the same ground is taken: 

If we were asked for what end, above all others, endowed 
universities exist, or ought to exist, we should answer, "To 
keep alive philosophy." This, too, is the ground on which, 
of late years, our own national endowments have chiefly been 
defended. To educate common minds for the common busi- 
ness of life, a public provision may be useful, but is not 
indispensable; nor are there wanting arguments, not con- 
clusive, yet of considerable strength to show that it is un- 
desirable. Whatever individual competition does at all, it 
commonly does best. All things in which the public are ade- 
quate judges of excellence are best supplied where the 
stimulus of individual interest is the most active; and that 
is where pay is in proportion to exertion: not where pay 
is made sure in the first instance, and the only security for 
exertion is the superintendence of government ; far less where, 
as in the English universities, even that security has been 
successfully excluded. But there is an education of which 
it cannot be pretended that the public are competent judges, 
— the education by which great minds are formed. To rear 
up minds with aspirations and faculties above the herd, ca- 
pable of leading on their countrymen to greater achieve- 
ments in virtue, intelligence, and social well-being, — to do 

8^ ''On Liberty, '^ p. 127. 



176 EDUCATION 

this, and likewise so to educate the leisured classes of the 
community generally, that they may participate as far as 
possible in the qualities of these superior spirits, and be 
prepared to appreciate them and follow in their steps, — 
these are purposes requiring institutions of education placed 
above dependence on the immediate pleasure of that very 
multitude whom they are designed to elevate. These are the 
ends for which endowed universities are desirable; they are 
those which all endowed universities profess to aim at: and 
great is their disgrace, if, having undertaken this task, and 
claiming credit for fulfilling it, they leave it unfulfilled.^^ 

In one of Ms later letters in a more informal 
way Mr. Mill indicates and applies the same belief : 

Experience shows that academies, whether of literature or 
science, generally prefer inoffensive mediocrities to men of 
original genius. Cuvier was no ordinary man, but neither 
Geoffrey St. Hilaire nor Darwin would have had a chance 
of obtaining his vote for a professorship.^^ 

This need of the training of great men is of all 
parts of the world most urgent in the United 
States. 

Writing to James M. Barnard, of Boston, in 
the year of 1869, Mill says : 

The great desideratum in America — and though not quite 
in an equal degree, I may say in England too — is the im- 
provement of the higher education. America surpasses all 



" ' ' Dissertations and Discussions, ' ' Vol. I., p. 121. 
^^^Letters,'' Vol. IL, p. 354. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN STUART MILL 177 

countries in the amount of mental cultivation which she has 
been able to make universal; but a high average level is not 
everything. There are wanted, I do not say a class, but 
a great number of persons of the highest degree of cultivation 
which the accumulated acquisitions of the human race make 
it possible to give them. From such persons, in a community 
that knows no distinction of ranks, civilisation would rain 
down its influences on the remainder of society, and the 
higher faculties, having been highly cultivated in the more 
advanced part of the public, would give forth products and 
create an atmosphere that would produce a high average 
of the same faculties in a people so well prepared in point 
of general intelligence as the people of the United States.^'* 

Such is my interpretation of Mill's idea of educa- 
tion. It is an education deep, broad and high, — as 
broad as human nature, as high as truth, as deep 
as destiny. Though severe is the type, it is still 
human. Though Mill might have accepted mem- 
bership in a narrow sect of educational Pharisa- 
ism, his thought of discipline is broad. Though he 
emphasized the older type of education as seen in 
the ancient classics, he developed the inductive logic 
and illustrated its monumental types with multi- 
tudes of examples drawn from modern science. 
Though not an educationist or formal instructor, 
his influence as an educator was for a score of years 
commanding. Though he was personally unknown 

2* ''Letters," Vol. II., p. 227. 



178 EDUCATION 

to many of the leaders of his time, though he was 
not a child of Oxford or of Cambridge, he was 
the chief force in influencing for a generation their 
undergraduates. His appreciation of all branches 
of knowledge was deep, and his sympathy with men 
of all sorts and conditions was broad without being 
superficial, and high without visionariness. 



EDUCATION ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 

A MAN'S conception of the value and the na- 
ture of education is determined largely by 
two considerations: The first is his conception of 
the purpose of life. Mr. Gladstone thought of life 
as a solemn and serious duty, to be entered upon 
like the marriage service, reverently, soberly, dis- 
creetly, advisedly, and to be pursued with such ear- 
nestness and wisdom that the conclusion would be 
as triumphant as inevitable. It was a great and 
noble calling he felt life to be; not a mean and 
grovelling thing that one must shuffle through, but 
an elevated and lofty destiny. 

The second consideration which helps in deter- 
mining a man's sense of the value and nature of 
education relates to his personal experience: his 
own education helps to make up his judgment re- 
garding what all education ought to be. This judg- 
ment is applied quite as often negatively as posi- 
tively. Frequently a man feels that the method of 
his own education has proved a failure so lament- 

179 



180 EDUCATION 

able that he counsels every one to follow any other 
method than that which he himself has suffered. 
More frequently a man believes that his own kind 
of education is the best for others. Mr. Gladstone's 
estimate of the worth of the different types of edu- 
cation is, in no small degree, an exponent of the 
type of education which he himself received. 

In the year 1831, Mr. Gladstone took his double 
first-class at Oxford as had, twenty-three years be- 
fore, Sir Eobert Peel. The double first-class was, 
of course, in classics and mathematics. Perhaps 
no subject in the whole educational curriculum 
has been more questioned than mathematics as a 
means of intellectual discipline. Of the value of 
mathematics in education he had a high opinion, 
for all minds excepting those which might claim to 
have the gift of genius. In his little memoir of 
Arthur Henry Hallam, Mr. Gladstone does speak of 
the disadvantage of his friend's having gone to the 
mathematical University of Cambridge. Another 
of Hallam 's ^^most valued friends," writing of 
Hallam 's mathematical abilities, says '^he declined 
the drudgery of the apprenticeship." ^ 

But the ordinary mind, Mr. Gladstone realized, 

* Eemains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam, John Murray, 
Preface, p. xxx. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 181 

could not a:fford to dispense with the training of 
mathematics. He felt that for those who found 
special difficulty in mathematical reasoning, it 
should be particularly valuable. He believed that 
few people have what is called a turn for anything. 
The development of our capacities is made out of 
elements which before their development could 
hardly be seen. 

One advantage of the training in mathematics 
lies in accuracy. Mr. Gladstone writes to his eldest 
son, W. H. Gladstone, in 1857, saying : 

When I was at Eton we knew very little indeed, but we 
knew it accurately. The extension of knowledge is an excel- 
lent thing, but the first condition of all is to have it exact. 
I am under the impression, from our Italian reading, that 
you are trying to keep this always in mind, and I feel most 
desirous you should, for it is hard to say what an evil 
the want of it always proves.^ 

The value which Mr. Gladstone finds in mathe- 
matics represents that which he thought belonged 
to metaphysics. A logical conclusion this, for 
mathematics is essentially a form of philosophy. 
He was not primarily a metaphysician or a mathe- 
matician. As Mr. Morley says : 

'^'Correspondence on Church and Eeligion of William Ewart Glad- 
stone/' by D. C. Lathbury, MacmiUan Co., 1910, Vol. II., p. 160. 



182 EDUCATION 

As to the problems of the metaphysician, Mr. Gladstone 
showed little curiosity. Nor for abstract discussion in its 
highest shape — for investigation of ultimate propositions — 
had he any of that power of subtle and ingenious reasoning 
which was often so extraordinary when he came to deal with 
the concrete, the historic and the demonstrable.^ 

But he early showed a great regard for Bishop 
Butler. To his son at Oxford, he writes : 

With respect to philosophy, I do not know what may be 
best according to modern fashions at Oxford, nor do I know 
what number of books you should take up. But, as far as 
the value of the books in them]selves and for discipline of 
the mind are concerned, I should recommend you as three 
books Aristotle's "Ethics*' and ''Politics" and Butler's ''An- 
alogy." You should also read and know Butler's Sermons. 
I should think you ought now to begin the "Analogy," or the 
"Politics," if not both. I would read little at a time, making 
sure that you thoroughly understand and possess everything 
as you go along — not that the two are the same, for the 
"Politics" will call more upon memory, the "Analogy" upon 
thought. 

I cannot say what value I attach to Bishop Butler's works. 
Viewing him as a guide of life, especially for the intellectual 
difficulties and temptations of these times, I place him be- 
fore almost any other author. The spirit of wisdom is in 
every line.* 

•**Life of William Ewart Gladstone, '* by John Morley, Macmillan 
Co., Vol. I., p. 209. 

* ' ' Correspondence, ' ' etc., Vol. II., p. 163. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 183 

The great factor in education, however, in the 
judgment of Gladstone, is found in the classical 
tradition, and his regard for this tradition was far 
more fundamental than that he entertained for 
either mathematics or metaphysics. In the year 
1861 Mr. Gladstone writes Lord Littleton : 

The low utilitarian argument in matter of education, for 
giving it what is termed a practical direction, is so plausible 
that I think we may on the whole be thankful that the in- 
stincts of the country have resisted what in argument it 
has been ill able to confute. We still hold by the classical 
training as the basis of a liberal education; parents dispose 
of their children in early youth accordingly; but if they 
were asked why they did so, it is probable they would give 
lamentably weak or unworthy reasons for it, such for ex- 
ample, as that the public schools and universities open the 
way to desirable acquaintance and what is termed *'good 
society.'^ . . . 

But why after all is the classical training paramount? Is 
it because we find it established? because it improves mem- 
ory or taste, or gives precision, or develops the faculty of 
speech? All these are but partial and fragmentary state- 
ments, so many narrow glimpses of a great and comprehensive 
truth. That truth I take to be that the modern European civ- 
ilization from the middle age downwards is the compound 
of two great factors, the Christian religion for the spirit of 
man, and the Greek, and in a secondary degree the Roman 
discipline for his mind and intellect. St. Paul is the apostle 
of the Gentiles, and is in his own person a symbol of this 
great wedding — the place, for example, of Aristotle and Plato 



184 EDUCATION 

in Christian education is not arbitrary nor in principle 
mutable. The materials of what we call classical training 
were prepared, and we have a right to say were advisedly 
prepared, in order that it might become not a mere adjunct 
but (in mathematical phrase) the complement of Christianity 
in its application to the culture of the human being formed 
both for this world and for the world to come. 

If this principle be true it is broad and high and clear 
enough, and supplies a key to all questions connected with 
the relation between the classical training of our youth and 
all other branches of their secular education. It must of 
course be kept within its proper place, and duly limited as 
to things and persons. It can only apply in full to that small 
proportion of the youth of any country, who are to become 
in the fullest sense educated men. It involves no extravagant 
or inconvenient assumptions respecting those who are to be 
educated for trades and professions in which the necessities 
of specific training must limit general culture. It leaves 
open every question turning upon individual aptitudes and 
inaptitudes and by no means requires that boys without a 
capacity for imbibing any of the spirit of classical culture 
are stiU to be mechanically plied with the instruments of it 
after their unfitness has become manifest. But it lays down 
the rule of education for those who have no internal and 
no external disqualification; and that rule, becoming a fixed 
and central point in the system, becomes also the point around 
which all others may be grouped.^ 

The classical training was thought to be of value 
by Mr. Gladstone not only because of its literary 

■'"Life of," etc., Vol. II., pp. 646-648. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 185 

elements but also because of its philosophical im- 
port. To his eldest son he writes in 1860, saying : 

In my opinion the ''Polities'' of Aristotle are much more 
adapted for discipline to the mind of the young, and espe- 
cially to your mind, than the "Republic" of Plato. The 
merit of Plato's philosophy is in a quasi-spiritual and highly 
imaginative element that runs through it; Aristotle's deals 
in a most sharp, searching, and faithful analysis of the facts 
of human life and human nature. All the reasons that have 
bound Aristotle so wonderfully to Oxford should, I think, 
recommend him to you. Were I to determine your study, I 
should say. Take for the present some lighter specimen of 
Plato, and nothing more. . . . The ''Politics" will require 
much from you in thought and energy: I think the "Repub- 
lic" would be lighter as well as less valuable work. . . .* 

Although Mr. Gladstone gave a higher place to 
Greek than to Latin in classical education, he did 
place a high worth upon the writing of Latin. He 
says, in a note to his son of the year 1853: 

The art of writing really good Latin prose is a very diffi- 
cult one, and possessed by few persons, you can only advance 
towards it by slow degrees ; but it is a most valuable accom- 
plishment, and helps much in making up the character of a 
scholar and a gentleman by its refining effect upon taste and 
judgment in expression. It is an admirable preparation for 
writing good English.'^ 

"** Correspondence, " etc., Vol. II., p. 164. 
' Ibid., p. 151. 



186 EDUCATION 

It cannot, however, for one moment be doubted 
that the great element of education intellectual, in 
the judgment of Gladstone, is religion. Himself a 
great believer, ^'a, great Christian/' as Lord Salis- 
bury called him after his death, he esteemed the 
attitude toward religion — and to him the only re- 
ligion was the Christian — as of primary intellec- 
tual significance. In the troublesome period of 
1854, when university reform was in the air, he 
would have been glad to have made Oxford more 
religious and more theological. Pusey, in his ' ' Col- 
legiate and Professorial Teaching and Discipline," 
has a passage elevating the doctrine of God to a 
primary place in his scheme of education: 

God alone ... w in Himself, and is the Cause and Up- 
holder of everything to which He has given being. Every 
faculty of the mind is some reflection of His ; every truth has 
its being from Him ; every law of Nature has the impress of 
His hand ; everything beautiful has caught its light from His 
eternal beauty ; every principle of goodness has its foundation 
in His attributes. . . . History, without God, is a chaos with- 
out design, or end, or aim; political economy, without God, 
would be a selfish teaching for the acquisition of wealth; 
physics, without God, would be but a dull inquiry into cer- 
tain meaningless phenomena; ethics, without God, would be 
a varying rule, without principle, or substance, or centre, or 
regulating hand ; metaphysics, without God, would make man; 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 187 

his own temporary god, to be resolved, after his brief hour 
here, into the nothingness out of which he proceeded.^ 

Such is Mr. Gladstone's own conception of the 
place of religion in education. The theology which 
he represents is also of a pretty strict type. In 
the year 1865 he writes : 

I would rather see Oxford level with the ground than its 
religion regulated in the manner which would please Bishop 
Colenso.^ 

Mr. Gladstone's conception of the place of re- 
ligion in education is especially expounded in his 
letters to his children. To his son Harry in the 
year 1868 he writes : 

I am much concerned that my duties here should be so 
pressing at this moment as to prevent my going down to 
Eton to-morrow and joining my prayers to your dear moth- 
er's that the grace of God may abundantly descend upon you, 
both in the holy ordinance of Confirmation, and afterwards 
through all the days of your life. I shall do my best to 
recollect you from hence; and among other satisfactions I 
am truly glad that you should be confirmed by the Bishop 
of Oxford, who far exceeds all the prelates I have ever heard 
in the wise and devout impressiveness of his administration 
of that particular rite. 

But I look most to what lies within your own breast. It 
is in the preparation of the heart that the surest promise 

•7Z)id., Vol. I., p. 211. 
•Il>id., p. 220. 



188 EDUCATION 

as to this and every other ordinance is to be found: in the 
humility and self-mistrust, in the continual looking up to 
God, the silent prayer of the soul, for help and strength, in 
the manful resolution, resting on the hope of His aid, to fol- 
low right, conscience, honour, duty, truth, holiness, "through 
all the changes and chances of this mortal life, ' ' and whether 
others will walk with us or whether they will not.^^ 

To his daughter Helen, two years earlier, he 
writes : 

The duty to be done, the progress to be made, the good to 
be effected, the store to be laid up for the future, from day 
to day, from hour to hour, make life a solemn thing, and the 
first of all our duties is that the life of each of us should 
have a purpose, namely, the fulfilment of the Divine will, 
by steady exertion aimed at this object, that so far as de- 
pends upon us the sum of sin in the world, and in ourselves 
especially, shall be lessened by the work of our lives, and 
not increased. Pursue this end, my dearest child, under an 
ever-living sense of the presence of God with you, and, of 
your union with Christ, and may you in pursuing it have 
ever-increasing progress in overcoming evil and infirmity, 
and in working out the holy will of God.^^ 

Four years later upon her coming of age he 
writes to her to the same intent, saying : 

God has been liberal to you in capacity, and I trust you will 
render it all back to Him in good works done to your fellow- 
creatures, in the cultivation of your own mind, and in bring- 

" Ibid., Vol. II., p. 185. 
" Ibid., p. 191. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 189 

ing your whole heart and life into conformity with the 
blessed Pattern given us.^^ 

With rather complete fullness is his conception 
of the worth of religion in education outlined in 
certain specific prayers and counsels written for 
his eldest son. From a multitude of themes I select 
these brief counsels : 

This sense of God's presence will both help and be helped 
by the practice of prayer by silent ejaculation, or inwardly 
addressing God in short sentences, though of but two or 
three words: although so short, their wings may be strong 
enough to carry upwards many a fervent desire and earnest 
seeking after God. . . . 

Remember that the avoidance of sin, indispensable as it is, 
is the lower part of our religion : from which we should ever 
be striving onwards to the higher — namely, the life of Di- 
vine love, fed continually by the contemplation of God as 
He is revealed to us in Christ, nowhere better described in 
brief than by the Psalmist when he says: **As for me, I 
will behold Thy presence in righteousness : and when I awake 
up after Thy likeness I shall be satisfied with it" — words 
which, like most words of Scripture, open deeper and more 
satisfying truths the more we humbly ponder them.^^ 

Such is the concept of education which the Great 
Commoner, the first citizen of the world, for his 
prolonged generation, held. It is an education 
composed of mathematics and metaphysics in a 

"Jfeid, p. 193. 
" Ihid., p. 413. 



190 EDUCATION 

small degree, of Latin and Greek in a greater meas- 
ure, and of the counsels and elements of religion in 
the largest part. If religion is not the formal con- 
tent, it is more. It is the atmosphere which moves 
and colors, gives direction and inspires impulse for 
every other part of the whole educational system. 
As to the method in education, too, which the 
Great Commoner believed in, are found two or 
three significant notes. The method in education 
which Mr. Gladstone emphasized, and practised 
from earliest years to latest, lies simply in the word 
^^work." A tremendous worker himself, he 
preached work as the condition and way of seeking 
education. His earliest diaries show the value 
which he attached to it and his latest statements 
and lasting practise do not at all contradict them. 
The diary which he wrote in the year 1830, at the 
age of twenty-one, is full of evidences of his labori- 
ousness ; and a generation later he was counseling 
his eldest son likewise to be a good worker. 

Try and reconcile your mind thoroughly to the idea that 
this world, if we would be well and do well in it, is a world 
of work and not of idleness. This idea will, when heartily 
embraced, become like a part of yourself, and you wiU feel 
that you would on no account have it torn from you.^* 

" Ibid., p. 160. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 191 

Again, he says to his son who has become a stu* 
dent of Christ Church : 

If you look at the chief portraits in Hall, you will see 
with what manner and calibre of men you are associated. 
Neither is there any reason why you for yourself should not 
leave behind you a name with which in after-times others 
may be happy to claim fellowship : only be assured it must 
be on the same condition as Nature lays down for all except 
her prodigies, or, in other words, as God ordains for His 
children in general — the condition, I mean, of steady and 
hard work. If I may recommend you a mode in which to 
inaugurate your student-ship, I would say add an Jioiir to 
ymir daily minimum of work. Besides the good it will do 
you, it is a double acknowledgment — first to God, who has 
blessed your exertions; and secondly to the poor old Col- 
lege, to which I must be ever grateful, and whose fame I 
fondly hope you in your sphere will do something to restore 
and to increase.^^ 

It may also be said that Mr. Gladstone did not 
depreciate the value of what is known as cram- 
ming. He tells his son that 

It is not well to found a course of education on the idea of 
loading the memory ; but noiv is the moment for you to load 
your memory as heavily as you can without stint — much can 
be carried for a short distance that cannot be for a long 
one. It is very convenient at such a time to have the eye 
able to run over maps and refresh the memory on cardinal 
or imperfectly known points of geography. Especially at 

"^Ihid., p. 162. 



192 EDUCATION 

this time I should say work up well all the crack passages: 
those which concentrate much meaning in few words; those 
which give characteristic and pointed illustration of the 
characters of the authors, or of their race, country, or in- 
stitutions. I think you will find the collection of these pas- 
sages in my little red books pretty good : they were of great 
service to me, for which I love them, and I shall love them 
better if they can now do you a good turn.^^ 

In this process of education that primarily Eng- 
lish institution known as the examination had for 
him great worth. Of it he says in an address given 
at Manchester in the year 1862 : 

It raises to a maximum that stimulus which acts insensibly 
but powerfully upon the minds of students, as it were, from 
behind ; and becomes an auxiliary force augmenting their en- 
ergies, and helping them, almost without their knowledge, 
to surmount their difficulties. It is not found in practice, so 
far as I know, to be open to an objection which is popularly 
urged against it; this, namely, that it may elicit evil pas- 
sions among the candidates, because it makes the gain of 
one the loss of another. I believe that, on the contrary, the 
pursuit of knowledge is found to carry with it, in this respect, 
its own preservatives and safeguards. Even in athletic 
sports, the loser does not resent or grudge the fairly won 
honours of the winner; and, in the race of minds, those who 
are behind, having confidence in the perfect fairness of the 
award, are not so blindly and basely selfish as to cherish re- 
sentment against others for being better than themselves. 
Again, it is a recommendation of purely competitive exami- 
^'Ihid., p. 165, 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 193 

nations that they bring the matter to the simplest issue ; for, 
in nice cases, it is a much easier and safer task for the ex- 
aminer to compare the performances of a candidate with 
those of another candidate, than to compare them with some 
more abstract standard, existing only in his own mind.^^ 

The high worth which Mr. Gladstone placed upon 
education is indicated in many ways. He called 
Oxford and Cambridge the ^Hwo eyes of the coun- 
try.'' ^® His solicitude for them was constant and 
great. He believed that the connection between the 
mind of a nation and its education is vital. He 
loved Oxford as he loved his mother. His farewell 
message to Oxford, as he drew near his end, voiced 
his earnest prayers ^Ho the uttermost and to the 
last" for her. 

Two generations after he left the university, Mr. 
Gladstone interpreted her influence upon him : 

Oxford had rather tended to hide from me the great fact 
that liberty is a great and precious gift of God, and that hu- 
man excellence cannot grow up in a nation without it. And 
yet I do not hesitate to say that Oxford had even at this time 
laid the foundations of my liberalism. School pursuits had 
revealed little; but in the region of philosophy she had in- 
itiated if not inured me to the pursuit of truth as an end 
of study. The splendid integrity of Aristotle, and still more 

"'^Gleanings of Past Years," by the Eight Hon. William Ewart 
Gladstone, M. P., Charles Scribner's Sons, Vol. I., p. 15. 
""Life of," etc., Vol. III., p. 486. 



194 EDUCATION 

of Butler, conferred upon me an inestimable service. Else- 
where I have not scrupled to speak v^^ith severity of myself, 
but I declare that while in the arms of Oxford, I was possessed 
through and through with a single-minded and passionate love 
of truth, with a virgin love of truth, so that, although I might 
be swathed in clouds of prejudice there was something of an 
eye within, that might gradually pierce them.^^ 

But as Mr. Gladstone looked back upon Oxford 
in the later years, he traced one great defect in her 
education. 

Perhaps it was my own fault, but I must admit that I 
did not learn when I was at Oxford that which I have 
learned since — namely, to set a due value on the imperish- 
able and inestimable principle of British liberty. The tem- 
per which too much prevailed in academical circles was that 
liberty was regarded with jealousy and fear, something which 
could not wholly be dispensed with, but which was to be con- 
tinually watched for fear of excesses.^** 

In the year 1860, delivering his inaugural ad- 
dress as rector of Edinburgh, he says : 

Let me remind you how one of European fame, who is 
now your and my academical superior, how the great jurist, 
orator, philosopher and legislator, who is our Chancellor, how 
Lord Brougham besought the youth of Glasgow, as I in 
his words would more feebly, but not less earnestly, pray 
you, '^0 believe how incomparably the present season is 
verily and indeed the most precious of your whole lives," 

^Ubid., Vol. I., p. 84. 
*» Ibid., p. 60. 



ACCORDING TO GLADSTONE 195 

and how ''every hour you squander here will," in other 
days, "rise up against you, and be paid for by years of 
bitter but unavailing regrets." Let me recall to you the 
words of another Lord Rector of Glasgow, whose name is 
cherished in every cottage of his country, and whose strong 
sagacity, vast range of experience, and energy of will, were 
not one whit more eminent than the tenderness of his con- 
science, and his ever wakeful and wearing sense of public 
duty. Let me remind you how Sir Robert Peel, choosing 
from his quiver with a congenial forethought that shaft 
which was most likely to strike home, averred before the 
same academic audience what may as safely be declared to 
you, that "there is a presumption, amounting almost to 
certainty, that if any one of you will determine to be eminent 
in whatever profession you may choose, and will act with 
unvarying steadiness in pursuance of that determination, 
you will, if health and strength be given to you, infallibly 
succeed. ' ' ^^ 

** ' ' Gleanings of Past Years, ' ' etc., Vol. VII., pp. 24-25. 



VI 

EDUCATION ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 

MATTHEW ARNOLD was a critic of litera- 
ture : a critic so large and so fine, that his 
criticism itself has become literature. He was also 
a poet, and it now seems not improbable that the 
future will include his name in that trinity of Eng- 
lish poets which helped to make illustrious the last 
half of the nineteenth century. He was too an 
inspector of English schools, an educationist, and 
to his work he gave wisdom, strength, vision and 
pains of all sorts. Both as cause and result of his 
educational service he wrote much on education, 
presenting facts as well as analyzing principles and 
theories. But whether as critic or as poet or as edu- 
cationist, he was always an interpreter — an inter- 
preter of life. He tried to see life sanely and to see 
it whole. He was sincere, full of charm, relying 
upon the power of persuasion to get the results he 
so eagerly desired. He loved nature, children and 
animals. He praised as well as condemned. He 
had humor as well as wit, enjoyed fun and endured 

196 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 197 

trial without complaint. Laborious, he found 
recreation in many forms of service. Serene, he 
delighted in every kind of human interest. Seek- 
ing for truth, he lived it, and was loyal to its duties. 
In him was a sweet reasonableness which, together 
with his other great qualities, causes his interpreta- 
tion of education to be of precious worth. 

His sum of thoughts about education is no more 
orderly and logical and consistent than Emerson's. 
Frederic Harrison says of him in the year 1867 : 

We seek vainly in ]\Ir. Arnold a system of philosophy with 
principles coherent, interdependent, subordinate, and deriva- 
tive. 

If '^ education" were substituted for ^* philoso- 
phy," the remark would be quite as true. And yet 
it is not difficult from the many volumes of his 
writings to select certain great and generally con- 
sistent interpretations. 

These interpretations are concerned, first, with 
a definition of education ; second, with the kind of 
education needed for different classes in the com- 
munity; third, with the content of education; 
fourth, with methods; fifth, with administration; 
sixth, with the training of teachers ; seventh, with 
ithe worth or worthlessness of examinations. 



198 EDUCATION 

The definition of education which Mr. Arnold 
gives is not dogmatic. It is rather inquisitive, 
characterizing, descriptive. He says of the com- 
pass of education : 

The ideal of a general, liberal training, is to carry us to 
a knowledge of ourselves and the world. We are called to 
this knowledge by special aptitudes which are born with us; 
the grand thing in teaching is to have faith that some apti- 
tudes of this kind every one has. This one's special apti- 
tudes are for knowing men — the study of the humanities; 
that one's special aptitudes are for knowing the world — the 
study of nature. The circle of knowledge comprehends both, 
and we should all have some notion, at any rate, of the 
whole circle of knowledge. The rejection of the humanities 
by the realists, the rejection of the study of nature by the 
humanists, are alike ignorant. He whose aptitudes carry 
him to the study of nature should have some notion of the 
humanities; he whose aptitudes carry him to the humanities 
should have some notion of the phenomena and laws of 
nature.^ 

Into his definition of education Mr. Arnold does 
not admit any sort of common narrowness or limi- 
tation. The t}^e embraces both the moral char- 
acter and the intellect of the individual. He says : 

In modern epochs, the part of a high reason, of ideas, ac- 
quires constantly increasing importance in the conduct of 
the world's affairs. A fine culture is the complement of a 

***Higher Schools and Universities in Germany," p. 175, 



ACCOEDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 199 

high reason, and it is in the conjunction of both with char- 
acter, with energy, that the ideal for men and nations is 
placed. It is common to hear remarks on the frequent di- 
vorce between culture and character, and to infer from this 
that culture is a mere varnish, and that character only de- 
serves any serious attention. No error can be more fatal: 
culture without character is, no doubt, something frivolous, 
vain, and weak, but character without culture is, on the 
other hand, something raw, blind, and dangerous: the most 
interesting, the most truly glorious peoples, are those in 
which the alliance of the two has been effected most suc- 
cessfully, and its result spread most widely.^ 

The emphasis upon character does not detract 
from the emphasis on culture. Culture is the need 
of all. The poor demand it quite as much as the 
rich, and the rich need it quite as much as the poor. 
When culture is defined as the acquainting our- 
selves ^^with the best which has been thought and 
said in the world,'' it becomes plain that it is or 
should be made a universal possession. For secur- 
ing it reading is the most effective method. 

But, secondly, education is to be adjusted to the 
needs of persons. The education most profitable 
for one class of the community may not be profit- 
able for another class. The question most impor- 

'**The Popular Education of France, with Notices of that of Hol- 
land and Switzerand," p. xliii. 



200 EDUCATION 

tant to Matthew Arnold, as to Herbert Spencer, is 
the question of relative worth. 

Social classes in England are differentiated more 
highly than in any other country. Each class has 
its own special weakness or peril : 

Far more than by the helplessness of an aristocracy whose 
day is fast coming to an end, far more than by the rawness 
of a lower class whose day is only just beginning, we are em- 
perilled by what I call the ''Philistinism" of our middle 
class. On the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity; on the 
side of morals and feeling, coarseness; on the side of mind 
and spirit, unintelligence — this is Philistinism.^ 

Now for these different classes the one conunon 
advantage to be offered is education, and education 
adjusted to the need of each class : 

It seems to me that, for the class frequenting Eton, the 
grand aim of education should be to give them those good 
things which their birth and rearing are least likely to give 
them, to give them (besides mere book-learning) the notion 
of a sort of republican fellowship, the practice of a plain 
life in common, the habit of self-help. To the middle class, 
the grand aim of education should be to give largeness of 
soul and personal dignity; to the lower class, feeling, gen- 
tleness, humanity.* 

»"The Study of Celtic Literature,'^ Intr., ix. 
*"A French Eton," p. 62. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 201 

In other words, Mr. Arnold says that education 
should have the element of proportion. With un- 
usual power and discrimination he writes: 

Da mihi, Doniine, scire quod sciendum est, ''Grant that 
the knowledge I get may be the knowledge which is worth 
having!" — the spirit of that prayer ought to rule our edu- 
cation. How little it does rule it, every discerning man 
will acknowledge. Life is short, and our faculties of atten- 
tion and of recollection are limited; in education we pro- 
ceed as if our life were endless, and our powers of atten- 
tion and recollection inexhaustible. We have not time or 
strength to deal with half of the matters which are thrown 
upon our minds ; they prove a useless load to us. When some 
one talked to Themistocles of an art of memory, he answered : 
* ' Teach me rather to forget ! ' ' The sarcasm well criticizes the 
fatal want of proportion between what we put into our 
minds and their real needs and powers.^ 

In particular, quoting Plato, he says to Ameri- 
can audiences : 

**An intelligent man," says Plato, ''will prize those stud- 
ies which result in his soul getting soberness, righteousness, 
and wisdom, and will less value the others." I cannot con- 
sider that a bad description of the aim of education, and 
of the motives which should govern us in the choice of stud- 
ies, whether we are preparing ourselves for a hereditary seat 
in the English House of Lords or for the pork trade in 
Chicago.^ 

^ Preface to Johnson 's ' ' Lives of the Poets. ' ' 
•* ^ Discourses in America," p. 78. 



202 EDUCATION 

And at the same time, under circumstances 
which brought America especially near to his vision 
he goes on to say : 

Still I admit that Plato's world was not ours, that his 
scorn of trade and handicraft is fantastic, that he had no 
conception of a great industrial community such as that of 
the United States, and that such a community must and will 
shape its education to suit its own needs. If the usual edu- 
cation handed down to it from the past does not suit it, 
it will certainly before long drop this and try another. The 
usual education in the past has been mainly literary. The 
question is whether the studies which were long supposed 
to be the best for all of us are practically the best now; 
whether others are not better. The tyranny of the past, many 
think, weighs on us injuriously in the predominance given to 
letters in education. The question is raised whether, to meet 
the needs of our modern life, the predominance ought not now 
to pass from letters to science; and naturally the question 
is nowhere raised with more energy than here in the United 
States. The design of abasing what is called *'mere literary 
instruction and education," and of exalting what is called 
** sound, extensive, and practical scientific knowledge, '* is, 
in this intensely modem world of the United States, even 
more perhaps than in Europe, a very popular design, and 
makes great and rapid progress/ 

But education, whether for England or for 
America, for the obscure or for the conspicuous, 
for the class of leisure or for the class of labor, is to 

'Ibid., pp. 78-79. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 203 

possess what Pericles calls *^a happy and gracious 
flexibility." ^^A charming gift" this, and along 
with it go, Mr. Arnold adds : 

Lucidity of thought, clearness and propriety of language, 
freedom from prejudice and freedom from stiffness, openness 
of mind, amiability of manners. . . .® 

In respect to the content of education, one finds 
in Matthew Arnold what, on the whole, one expects 
to find — a keen loyalty to the scholastic tradition. 
His own reading of Latin and Greek was broad and 
accurate. He knew his Plato and his Aristotle, 
and among his ^^unapproachable favorites" were 
Homer and Sophocles. He was himself a Wyke- 
hamist and the son of a Wykehamist. His father 
was the greatest of head-masters. Three of his 
brothers had been at his father's school, and three 
of his sons he sent to Harrow. One therefore ex- 
pects to find much laudation and commendation of 
the great classical literatures. From many pas- 
sages I select the more pregnant. 

In a speech made at Eton he says : 

What a man seeks through his education is to get to kaow 
himself and the world; next, that for this knowledge it is 
before all things necessary that he acquaint himself with 
the best which has been thought and said in the world ; finally, 

•**Irish Essays" (A Speech at Eton), p. 187. 



204 EDUCATION 

that of this best the classics of Greece and Rome form a very 
chief portion, and the portion most entirely satisfactory. 
"With these conclusions lodged safe in one's mind, one is 
staunch on the side of the humanities.^ 

In speaking of the study of Latin in elementary; 
schools he also says : 

It may seem over-sanguine, but I hope to see Latia, also, 
much more used as a special subject, and even adopted, finally, 
as part of the regular instruction in the upper classes of 
all elementary schools. Of course, I mean Latin studied in 
a very simple way ; but I am more and more struck with the 
stimulating and instructing effect upon a child's mind of 
possessing a second language, in however limited a degree, as 
an object of reference and comparison. Latin is the foun- 
dation of so much in the written and spoken language of 
modern Europe, that it is the best language to take as a 
second language; in our own written and book language, 
above all, it fills so large a part that we, perhaps, hardly know 
how much of their reading falls meaningless upon the eye 
and ear of children in our elementary schools, from their 
total ignorance of either Latin or a modern language de- 
rived from it. For the little of languages that can be taught 
in our elementary schools, it is far better to go to the root 
at once; and Latin, besides, is the best of all languages to 
learn grammar by. But it should by no means be taught 
as in our classical schools; far less time should be spent on 
the grammatical framework, and classical literature should 
be left quite out of view. A second language, and a language 
coming very largely iuto the vocabulary of modem nations, 

'Ibid., p. 184. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 205 

is what Latin should stand for to the teacher of an elemen- 
tary schooL^^ 

He also remarks and more radically, speaking 
of the study of Latin as an initiation into the spirit 
of the ancient world : 

The close appropriation of the models, which is necessary 
for good Latin or Greek composition, not only conduces to 
accurate and verbal scholarship ; it may beget, besides, an in- 
timate sense of those models, which makes us sharers of their 
spirit and power; and this is of the essence of true Alter- 
thumswissenschaft. Herein lies the reason for giving boys 
more of Latin composition than of Greek, superior though 
the Greek literature be to the Latin; but the power of the 
Latin classic is in character, that of the Greek is in heauty. 
Now, character is capable of being taught, learnt, and as- 
similated; beauty hardly; and it is for enabling us to learn 
and catch some power of antiquity, that Greek or Latin com- 
position is most to be valued. Who shall say what share the 
turning over and over in their mind, and masticating, so 
to speak, in early life as models for their Latin verse, such 
things as Virgirs 

**Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem'^ — 
or Horace's 

"Fortuna saevo Iceta negotio'' — 
has not had in forming the high spirit of the upper class 
in France and England, the two countries where Latin verse 
has most ruled the schools, and the two countries which most 
have had, or have, a high upper class and a high upper class 

"^^Reports on Elementary Schools, 1872," p. 164. 



206 EDUCATION 

spirit? All this is no doubt to be considered when we are 
judging the worth of the old school training.^^ 

The value of the classical training is further 
emphasized by Mr. Arnold's reference to his own 
experience and observation in Germany: 

Dr. Jager, the director of the united school, — well-placed, 
therefore, for judging, and, as I have said, an able man, — 
assured me it was the universal conviction with those com- 
petent to form an opinion, that the Realschulen were not, at 
present, successful institutions. He declared that the boys 
in the corresponding forms of the classical school beat the 
Realschule boys in matters which both do alike, such as 
history, geography, the mother-tongue, and even French, 
though to French the Realschule boys devote so far more 
time than their comrades of the classical school. The rea- 
son for this, Dr. Jager affirms, is that the classical training 
strengthens a boy's mind so much more. 

This is what, as I have already said, the chief school 
authorities everywhere in France and Germany testify: I 
quote Dr. Jager 's testimony in particular, because of his 
ability and because of his double experience. In Switzerland 
you do not hear the same story, but the regnant Swiss con- 
ception of secondary instruction is, in general, not a liberal 
but a commercial one ; not culture and training of the mind, 
but what will be of immediate palpable utility in some prac- 
tical calling, is there the chief matter ; and this cannot be ad- 
mitted as the true scope of secondary instruction.^^ 

"^'Higher Schools and Universities in Germany," pp. 168-169. 
"Ihid., pp. 131—132. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 207 

The knowing of Latin and Greek in the sense Mr. 
Arnold puts upon it is not something slight. It 
represents thoroughness of training. He says : 

When we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for 
instance, which is the knowledge people have called the 
humanities, I for my part mean a knowledge which is some- 
thing more than a superficial humanism, mainly decorative. 
*1 call all teaching scientific," says Wolf, the critic of Homer, 
''which is systematically laid out and followed up to its 
original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical an- 
tiquity is scientific when the remains of classical antiquity 
are correctly studied in the original languages." There can 
be no doubt that Wolf is perfectly right; that all learning 
is scientific which is systematically laid out and followed up 
to its original sources, and that a genuine humanism is 
scientific. 

When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, 
therefore, as a help to knowing ourselves and the world, 
I mean more than a knowledge of so much vocabulary, so 
mlich grammar, so many portions of authors in the Greek 
and Latin languages, I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, 
and their life and genius, and what they were and did in 
the world; what we get from them, and what is its value. 
That, at least, is the ideal ; and when we talk of endeavouring 
to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a help to knowing 
ourselves and the world, we mean endeavouring so to know 
them as to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still 
fall short of it.^^ 

" ' ' Discourses in America, ' ' pp. 87-89. 



208 EDUCATION 

But while our author thus commends Latin and 
Greek, he is not at all blind or dumb to the value 
of other forms of training. He recognizes that 
there is a growing disbelief in Latin and Greek and 
a growing belief in the modern languages and the 
sciences as disciplines. Asked to give counsel re- 
garding the education of a relative, he says in a 
paragraph which may be quoted in full : 

If it is perception you want to cultivate in Florence you 
had much better take some science (botany is perhaps the best 
for a girl, and I know Tyndall thinks it the best of all for 
educational purposes), and choosing a good handbook, go 
regularly through it with her. Handbooks have long been the 
great want for teaching the natural sciences, but this want 
is at last beginning to be supplied, and for botany a text- 
book based on Henslow's ''Lectures," which were excellent, 
has recently been published by Macmillan. I cannot see 
that there is much got out of learning the Latin Grammar 
except the mainly normal discipline of learning something 
much more exactly than one is made to learn anything else; 
and the verification of the laws of grammar, in the examples 
furnished by one's reading, is certainly a far less fruitful 
stimulus of one's powers of observation and comparison than 
the verification of the laws of a science like botany in the 
examples furnished by the world of nature before one's eyes. 
The sciences have been abominably taught, and by untrained 
people, but the moment properly trained people begin to 
teach them properly they fill such a want in education as 
that which you feel in Florence's better than either gram- 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 209 

mar or mathematics, which have been forced into the service 
because they have been hitherto so far better studied and 
known. Grammar and pure mathematics will fill a much 
less important part in the education of the young than 
formerly, though the knowledge of the ancient world will 
continue to form a most important part in the education 
of mankind generally. But the way grammar is studied at 
present is an obstacle to this knowledge rather than a help to 
it, and I should be glad to see it limited to learning thor- 
oughly the example-forms of words, and very little more — for 
beginners, I mean. Those who have a taste for philosophi- 
cal studies may push them further, and with far more intel- 
ligible aids than our elementary grammars afterwards. So 
I should inflict on Florence- neither Latin nor English gram- 
mar as an elaborate discipline; make her learn her French 
verbs very thoroughly, and do her French exercises very 
correctly; but do not go to grammar to cultivate in her 
the power you mass, but rather to science.^* 

In respect to the content of education Mr. Arnold 
again and again refers to the worth of the Bible. 
He believes in the educative value of the English 
Bible. In ^ * A Bible Reading for Schools, ' ' he says : 

Only one literature there is, one great literature, for which 
the people have had a preparation — the literature of the 
Bible. However far they may be from having a complete 
preparation for it, they have some; and it is the only great 
literature for which they have any. Their bringing up, what 
they have heard and talked of ever since they were bom, 
have given them no sort of conversance with the forms, fash- 

" ''Letters/' Vol. I., p. 364. 



210 EDUCATION 

ions, notions, wordings, allusions, of literature having its 
source in Greece and Rome ; but they have given them a good 
deal of conversance with the forms, fashions, notions, word- 
ings, allusions, of the Bible. Zion and Babylon are their 
Athens and Rome, their Ida and Olympus are Tabor and 
Hermon, Sharon is their Tempe; these and the like Bible 
names can reach their imagination, kindle trains of thought 
and remembrance in them. The elements with which the 
literature of Greece and Rome conjures, have no power on 
them; the elements with which the literature of the Bible 
conjures, have. Therefore I have so often insisted, in re- 
ports to the Education Department, on the need, if from 
this point of view only, for the Bible in schools for the 
people. If poetry, philosophy, and eloquence, if what we 
call in one word letters, are a power, and a beneficent won- 
der-working power, in education, through the Bible only 
have the people much chance of getting at poetry, philosophy, 
and eloquence. Perhaps I may here quote what I have 
at former times said : ' ' Chords of power are touched by this 
instruction which no other part of the instruction in a 
popular school reaches, and chords various, not the single 
religious chord only. The Bible is for the child in an ele- 
mentary school almost his only contact with poetry and philos- 
ophy. What a course of eloquence and poetry (to call it by 
that name alone) is the Bible in a school which has and can 
have but little eloquence and poetry! and how much do 
our elementary schools lose by not having any such source 
as part of their school-programme. All who value the Bible 
may rest assured that thus to know and possess the Bible is 
the most certain way to extend the power and efficacy of 
the Bible. "^^ 

"'*A Bible Eeading for Schools," pp. x-xi. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 211 

To the methods of education, Mr. Arnold gives 
much heed, and in diverse forms and ways, al- 
though not with the fullness and exactness which 
he devotes to the content of education. He is 
not a believer in the special value of rules or of 
methods. He did not himself use rules. A great 
man, his personality was his chief force. His ap- 
preciation of the worth of rules in comparison to 
personality may be inferred from what he says of 
the normal school at Haarlem : 

The normal school at Haarlem beeam^e justly celebrated 
for its success, due to the capacity and character of its di- 
rector, M. Prinsen. M. Prinsen was still at its head when 
M. Cousin visited Holland. He received M. Cousin at Haar- 
lem; and the vigour of the man, and the personal nature of 
his iufluence over his pupils, is sufficiently revealed in his 
reply to M. Cousin's request for a copy of the regulations of 
his school: '*I am the regulations," was M, Prinsen 's an- 
swer.^® 

The same lesson is taught in his summary of 
Wolf's great rule for teaching: 

Wolf's great rule in all these lessons was that rule which 
all masters in the art of teaching have followed — to take as 
little part as possible in the lesson himself; merely to start 

"''The Popular Education of France, with Notices of that of Hol- 
land and Switzerland, ' ' p. 206. 



212 EDUCATION 

it, guide it, and sum it up, and to let quite the main part 
in it be borne by the learners.^^ 

It is in a word Mr. Arnold's belief that the 
teacher is the school, and that the teacher's own 
personality will make or impress the wisest meth- 
ods for securing the highest results. 

Although Mr. Arnold does not believe in methods 
as applied to the school-room, he does believe in an 
administration of education that shall be orderly, 
logical, consistent. 

It is not from any love of bureaucracy that men like WU- 
helm von Humboldt, ardent friends of human dignity and 
liberty, have had recourse to a department of State in or- 
ganizing universities; it is because an Education Minister 
supplies you, for the discharge of certain critical functions, 
the agent who will perform them in the greatest blaze of 
daylight and with the keenest sense of responsibility. Con- 
vocation made me formerly a professor, and I am very grate- 
ful to Convocation ; but Convocation is not a fit body to have 
the appointment of professors. It is far too numerous, and 
the sense of responsibility does not tell upon it strongly 
enough. A board is not a fit body to have the appointment 
of professors; men will connive at a job as members of a 
board who single-handed would never have perpetrated it. 
Even the Crown — that is, the Prime Minister — is not the 
fit power to have the appointment of professors; for the 
Prime Minister is above all a political functionary, and feels 

" * * Higher Schools and Universities in Germany, ' ' p. 73. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 213 

political influences overwhelmingly. An Education Minis- 
ter, directly representing all the interests of learning and 
intelligence in this great country, a full mark for their 
criticism and conscious of his responsibility to them, that is 
the power to whom to give the appointment of professors, not 
for his own sake, but for the sake of public education.^^ 

He believes in fact that organization is the 
method for securing superiority in the teaching 
staff: 

The instruction is better in the foreign popular schools than 
in ours, because the teachers are better trained, and of the 
training of teachers I shall have to speak presently. This is 
the main reason of the superiority, that the teachers are bet- 
ter trained. But that they are better trained comes from 
a cause which acts for good upon the whole of education 
abroad, that the instruction as a whole is better organized 
than with us. Indeed, with us it is not, and cannot at pres- 
ent be organized as a whole at all, for the public adminis- 
tration, which deals with the popular schools, stops at those 
schools, and takes into its view no others. But there is an 
article in the constitution of Canton Zurich which well ex- 
presses the idea which prevails everywhere abroad of the 
organization of instruction from top to bottom as one whole : 
Die hohern Lehranstalten sollen mit der Volkschule in organ- 
i^che Verhindung gehracht werden; the higher establish- 
ments for teaching shall be brought into organic connexion 
with the popular school. And men like Wilhelm von Hum- 
boldt in Germany and Guizot or Cousin in France have been 
at the head of the public administration of schools in those 

*»ll>id., pp. 222-223. 



214 EDUCATION 

countries, and have organized popular instruction as a part 
of one great system, a part in correspondence of some kind 
with the higher parts, and to be organized with the same 
seriousness, the same thorough knowledge and large views 
of education, the same single eye to its requirements, as 
the higher parts. 

We may imagine the like in England if we suppose a 
man like Sir James Mackintosh at the head of the Education 
Department having to administer the public school system 
for intermediate and higher education as well as the popular 
schools, in continual intercourse with the representatives 
of that system as well as with representatives of the popular 
schools, and treating questions respecting popular instruc- 
tion with a mind apt for all educational questions and con- 
versant with them, aided, moreover, by the intercourse just 
spoken of. Evidently questions respecting codes and pro- 
grams would then present themselves under conditions very 
different from the present conditions. The popular school 
in our country is at present considered by the minister in 
charge of it not at all as one stage to be co-ordered with the 
other stages in a great system of public schools, and to have 
its course surveyed and fixed from the point of view of a 
knower and lover of education. Not at all; the popular 
school is necessarily, for him, not so much an educational 
problem as a social and political one; as a school dealing 
with a few elementary matters, simple enough, and the 
great thing is to make the House of Commons and the pub- 
lic mind satisfied that value is received for the public money 
spent on teaching these matters. Hence the Code which 
governs the instruction in our popular schools. And I have 
always felt that objections made in the pure interest of good 
instruction and education to the Code had this disadvantage, 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 215 

that they came before a man, often very able, but who, from 
his circumstances, would not and could not consider them 
from the point of a disinterested knower and friend of edu- 
cation at all, but from a point of view quite different.^^ 

The contrast between Mr. Arnold's lack of belief 
in methods in the school-room and his outstanding 
belief in method as applied to administration — and 
in an administrative organization, beginning with 
a minister of education, who is a monarch, and run- 
ning down through a Prussian system of subordi- 
nate officers — is striking and impressive. 

Mr. Arnold recognizes that the teacher is, under 
a good system of administration, the chief or the 
only force. In respect to the training of teachers, 
he says : 

They say, why demand so much learning from those who 
will have to impart so little? — why impose on those who 
will have to teach the rudiments only of knowledge to the 
children of the poor, an examination so wide in its range, 
so searching in its details? 

The answer to this involves the whole question as to the 
training of the teachers of elementary schools. It is suffi- 
cient to say, that the plan which these objectors recommend, 
the plan of employing teachers whose attainments do not rise 
far above the level of the attaimnents of their scholars, has 
already been tried. It has been tried, and it has failed. Its 

"^'Special Eeport on Elementary Education in Germany, Switzer- 
land, and Trance, 1886," p. 15. 



216 EDUCATION 

fruits were to be seen in the condition of elementary educa- 
tion throughout England, until a very recent period. It is 
now sufficiently clear, that the teacher to whom you give 
only a drudge's training, will do only a drudge's work, and 
will do it in a drudge's spirit: that in order to ensure good 
instruction even within narrow limits in a school, you must 
provide it with a master far superior to his scholars, with 
a master whose own attainments reach beyond the limits 
within which those of his scholars may be bounded. To form 
a good teacher for the simplest elementary school, a period 
of regular training is requisite: this period must he filled 
with work. . . .^" 

For that outstanding element in English educa- 
tion, the examination, Mr. Arnold has a just con- 
demnation. Especially does he condemn examina- 
tions conducted for men who have been preparing 
for them by cramming : 

Examinations preceded by preparation in a first-rate su- 
perior school, with first-rate professors, give you a formed 
man; examinations preceded by preparation under a cram- 
mer give you a crammed man, but not a formed one. I once 
bore part in the examinations for the Indian Civil Service, 
and I can truly say that the candidates to whom I gave 
the highest marks were almost without exception the can- 
didates whom I would not have appointed. They were 
crammed men, not formed men; the formed men were the 
public school men, but they were ignorant on the special 
matter of examination, — English literature. A superior school 

*>*' Reports on Elementary Schools, 1855," p. 55. 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 217 

forms a man at the same time that it gives him special 
knowledge. ^^ 

Mr. Arnold says in testing this type of training : 

Attention has lately heen called to the breakdown, in India, 
of a number of young nuen who had won their appointments 
after severe study and severe examination. No doubt the 
quantity of mental exertion required for examinations is often 
excessive, but the strain is much the more severe, because 
the quality and character of mental exertion required are so 
often injudicious. The mind is less strained the more it 
reacts on what it deals with, and has a native play of its 
own, and is creative. It is more strained the more it has to 
receive a number of "knowledges" passively, and to store 
them up to be reproduced in an examination. But to ac- 
quire a number of "knowledges," store them, and reproduce 
them, was what in general those candidates for Indian em- 
plojonent had had to do. By their success in doing this they 
were tested, and the examination turned on it. In old days 
examinations mainly turned upon Latin and Greek composi- 
tion. Composition in the dead languages is now wholly out 
of favor, and I by no means say that it is a sufficient test 
for candidates for Indian employment. But I will say that 
the character and quality of mental exertion required for it 
is more healthy than the character and quality of exertion 
required for receiving and storing a number of "knowl- 
edges." ^2 

In a brief and comprehensive word, it is to be 
said that Mr. Arnold believes the great benefit of 

=" ' ' A French Eton, ' ' p. 412. 

'^'^Keports on Elementary Schools, 1882,'' p. 256. 



218 EDUCATION 

education lies in the elevation of the mind and feel- 
ings. This is ''the unspeakable benefit." He be- 
lieves that the humanizing touch is the greatest 
and most precious worth. This worth is especially 
emphasized in the schools of Germany. There he 
finds ''the children human." He says in detail: 

They had been brought under teaching of a quaHty to 
touch and interest them, and were being formed by it. The 
fault of the teaching in our popular schools at home is, as I 
have often said, that it is so little formative; it gives the 
children the power to read the newspapers, to write a 
letter, to cast accounts, and gives them a certain number of 
pieces of knowledge, but it does little to touch their nature 
for good and to mould them. You hear often people of the 
richer class in England wishing that they and their children 
were as well educated as the children of an elementary school ; 
they mean that they wish they wrote as good a hand, worked 
sums as rapidly and correctly, and had as many facts of 
geography at command ; but they suppose themselves retain- 
ing all the while the fuller cultivation of taste and feeling 
which is their advantage and their children's advantage 
over the pupils of the elementary school at present, and they 
forget that it is within the power of the popular school, and 
should be its aim, to do much for this cultivation, although 
our schools accomplish for it so very little. The excellent 
maxim of that true friend of education, the German school- 
master, John Comenius, ''The aim is to train generally all 
who are born to all which is human," does in some consid- 
erable degree govern the proceedings of popular schools in 



ACCORDING TO MATTHEW ARNOLD 219 

German countries, and now in France also, but in England 
hardly at all.^^ 

He says comprehensively : 

The aim and office of instruction, say many people, is to 
make a man a good citizen, or a good Christian, or a gentle- 
man; or it is to fit him to get on in the world, or it is to 
enable him to do his duty in that state of life to which he 
is called. It is none of these, and the modern spirit more 
and more discerns it to be none of these. These are at best 
secondary and indirect aims of instruction; its prime direct 
aim is to enable a man to know himself and the world.^^ 

And he adds in conclusion : 

As our public instruction gets a clearer view of its own 
functions, of the relations of the human spirit to knowledge, 
and of the entire circle of knowledge, it will certainly more 
learn to awaken in its pupils an interest in that entire circle, 
and less allow them to remain total strangers to any part 
of it. Still, the circle is so vast and human faculties are 
so limited, that it is for the most part through a single apti- 
tude, or group of aptitudes, that each individual will really 
get his access to intellectual life and vital knowledge; and 
it is by effectually directing these aptitudes on definite points 
of the circle, that he will really obtain his comprehension of 
the whole.^^ 

^'^^ Special Eeport on Elementary Education in Germany, Switzer- 
land, and France, 1886," p. 14. 

" ' ' Higher Schools and Universities in Germany, ' ' p. 154. 
»7&id., p. 157. 



220 EDUCATION 

As I write the closing paragraph of this chapter, 
I find hanging before me a picture of Matthew 
Arnold. It is a strong, calm, serious, solemn face, 
touched with semi-melancholy. It is as if the effort 
to see life sanely and to see it whole were too heavy, 
or as if, having seen life, the inevitable result were 
depression of soul. Yet the face thus set forth is 
not quite a true exponent of the man. For Mat- 
thew Arnold had much of the Greek's joyousness in 
life, much of the French lucidity and delicacy of 
taste, much of the Englishman's solidity and pa- 
tience. A critic of life, he sought through his criti- 
cisms to minister to his nation's well-being. An 
interpreter of religion, he endeavored to make the 
Christian faith more rational without causing it 
to lose its spirit of devotion. A poet, his verses 
are, though carefully wrought in his own tongue, 
bathed in the Attic dew. An inspector of schools, 
he tried to make education of every sort a more 
efficient instrument of genuine culture and of noble 
joyousness. If his father was the most outstanding 
school master of the early years of the Victorian 
period, he himself was in its later decades an ex- 
positor of commanding comprehensiveness, of defi- 
nite criticism, of charming persuasiveness and of 
quickening enthusiasms. 



VII 

EDUCATION ACCORDING TO JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 

IN an inconspicuous private library hang photo- 
graphs of two great portraits. One shows a 
man of twenty-five, having a face regular in out- 
line, full and fair, content without self-satisfac- 
tion, with eyes direct and alert, with hair, regularly 
laid, brushed back from a high intellectual fore- 
head, with lips set firmly and yet without any sus- 
picion of obstinacy, with chin strong, yet free from 
any undue assertiveness, with head resting well 
poised on a neck straight and strong, and over all a 
radiant atmosphere of hopefulness, of sunshine, of 
force, of poise, and of elevation. In the other por- 
trait is seen an old man of four score years, with 
face thin and worn, the cheeks fallen in, the eyes, 
sunken back into their sockets, patiently looking 
out into some indefinite unknown, locks of hair few, 
irregular, scattered, the chin receding and the chest 
retreating, and over all a dark, dull atmosphere of 
depression, dejection and disappointment, *^dull, 
monotonous, unprofitable, hopeless," though the 

221 



222 EDUCATION 

robe of a cardinal rests on the narrow and tliin 
shoulders and though the ring of a cardinal is on 
the hand which grasps the crosier which seems 
rather the crutch of support than a symbol of au- 
thority or of power. The one picture recalls the 
portrait of Titian's ^' Young Nobleman," yet hav- 
ing an intellectual and moral virility of which the 
nobleman never dreamed. The other recalls the 
portrait of Voltaire, the aged, without the in- 
tellectual activity, acquisitiveness and alertness, 
which the great Frenchman possessed. 

Between the time of these two portraits — for 
they each bear the one name of John Henry New- 
man — lies a life of high distinction, of manifold 
and diverse achievements, which is still one of the 
enigmas of biographic interpretation. 

Yet, interpretations, moving and keen, have been 
essayed, and their diversity illustrates the enig- 
matic quality of this outstanding life and career. 
To some, Newman is a religious philosopher like 
Pascal, to others, a mystic like Fenelon. To one, 
like Lord Morley, he is simply a master of English 
style and not to be considered as a thinker. To 
some, like certain German critics, he is an ecclesi- 
astic and theologian, a writer concerned with the- 
ory and development in dogma ; and to others, like 



ACCOEDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 223 

Dean Stanley, he belongs to the literature of all 
time. He himself illustrates what his biographer 
has said: 

That the same object may be seen by different onlookers 
under aspects so various and partial as to make their views, 
from their inadequacy, appear occasionally even contradic- 
tory.^ 

Yet in a still different light lies our task, of in- 
terpreting Newman as an educationist. For, in a 
word, what is education according to John Henry 
Newman ? 

The answer to this fundamental question can be 
made for him by seeking out his interpretation of 
the human reason, its nature, character, possibili- 
ties and limitations. 

In one of his great sermons — sermons which 
have the lyric element as a superlative excellence — 
he says: 

Keason is that faculty of the mind by which knowledge of 
things external to us, of beings, facts and events, is attained 
beyond the range of sense. It ascertains for us not natural 
things only, or immaterial only, or present only, or past, or 
future; but, even if limited in its power, it is unlimited in 
its range, viewed as a faculty, though, of course, in individu- 
als it varies in range also. It reaches to the ends of the uni- 

*''Tlie Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman,'' by Wilfrid Ward, 
Vol. I., p. 2. 



224 EDUCATION 

verse, and to the throne of God beyond them; it brings us 
knowledge, whether clear or uncertain, still knowledge, in 
whatever degree of perfection, from every side; but, at the 
same time, with this characteristic, that it obtains it indirectly, 
not directly. 

Eeason does not really perceive any thing; but it is a fac- 
ulty of proceeding from things that are perceived to things 
which are not; the existence of which it certifies to us on the 
hypothesis of something else being known to exist, in other 
words, being assumed to be true. . . . 

Reason is the faculty of gaining knowledge without direct 
perception, or of ascertaining one thing by means of another. 
In this way it is able, from small beginnings, to create to 
itself a world of ideas, which do or do not correspond to the 
things themselves for which they stand, or are true or not, 
according as it is exercised soundly or otherwise. One fact 
may suffice for a whole theory; one principle may create 
and sustain a system; one minute token is a clue to a large 
discovery. The mind ranges to and fro, and spreads out, 
and advances forward with a quickness which has become 
a proverb, and a subtlety and versatility which baffle inves- 
tigation. It passes on fromj point to point, gaining one by 
some indication; another on a probability; then availing it- 
self of an association; then falling back on some received 
law; next seizing on testimony; then committing itself to 
some popular impression, or some inward instinct, or some 
obscure memory; and thus it makes progress not unlike a 
clamberer on a steep cliff, who, by quick eye, prompt hand, 
and firm foot, ascends how he knows not himself, by per- 
sonal endowments and by practice, rather than by rule, 
leaving no track behind him, and unable to teach another. 
It is not too much to say that the stepping by which great 



ACCOKDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 225 

geniuses scale the mountains of truth is as unsafe and pre- 
carious to men in general, as the ascent of a. skilful moun- 
taineer up a literal crag. It is a way which they alone can 
take; and its justification lies in their success. And such 
mainly is the way in which all men, gifted or not gifted, com- 
monly reason, — not by rule, but by an inward faculty.^ 

In another sermon, he, with great significance, 
interprets still further : 

Philosophy is Reason exercised upon Knowledge ; for, from 
the nature of the case, where the facts are given, as is here 
supposed, Reason is synonymous with analysis, having no 
office beyond that of ascertaining the relations existing be- 
tween them. Reason is the power of proceeding to new ideas 
by means of given ones.* 

Yet this faculty of reason is to be used in wis- 
dom, in faith and through the gracious help of God 
himself. The piety of reason is voiced in this 
prayer: 

gracious and merciful God, Father of Lights, I humbly 
pray and beseech Thee, that in all my exercises of Reason, 
Thy gift, I may use it, as Thou wouldst have me use it, in 
the obedience of Faith, with a view to Thy Glory, with an 
aim at Thy Truth, in dutiful submission to Thy Will, for 
the comfort of Thine elect, for the edification of Holy Jerusa- 
lem, Thy Church, and in recollection of Thine own solemn 
warning : * ' Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall 

2 ' ' Oxford University Sermons, ' ' pp. 206, 256. 
''Ibid., p. 290. 



226 EDUCATION 

give an account thereof in the day of judgment; for by 
thy words, thou shalt be justified, and by thy words, thou 
shalt be condemned. ' ' * 

The reason of man is to be trained and formed ; 
and this training and discipline will manifest them- 
selves in certain unique intellectual methods and 
conditions. 

"When the intellect has once been properly trained and 
formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will 
display its powers with more or less effect according to its 
particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the 
case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety 
of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-command, and stead- 
iness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have de- 
veloped habits of business, power of influencing others, and 
sagacity. In others it vnll elicit the talent of philosophical 
speculation, and lead the mind forward to eminence in this 
or that intellectual department. In all it will be a faculty of 
entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought, 
and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession.^ 

The first step in intellectual training is to impress upon 
a boy's mind the idea of science, method, order, principle, 
and system; of rule and exception, of richness and harmony. 
This is commonly and excellently done by making him be- 
gin with Grammar; nor can too great accuracy, or minute- 
ness and subtlety of teaching be used towards him, as his 
faculties expand, with this simple purpose. Hence it is that 

* Ward '8, ''Life of,'' etc., Vol. IL, pp. 364-365. 
"''The Idea of a University," Preface, pp. xvii-xviii. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 227 

critical scholarship is so important a discipline for him when 
he is leaving school for the University. A second science is 
■the Mathematics: this should follow Grammar, still with 
the same object, viz., to give him a conception of develop- 
ment and arrangement from and around a common centre. 
Hence it is that Chronology and Geography are so necessary 
for him, when he reads History, which is otherwise little bet- 
ter than a story-book. Hence, too. Metrical Composition, when 
he reads Poetry ; in order to stimulate his powers into action 
in every practicable way, and to prevent a merely passive 
reception of images and ideas which in that case are likely 
to pass out of the mind as soon as they have entered it. Let 
him once gain this habit of method, of starting from fixed 
tpoints, of making his ground good as he goes, of distinguish- 
iing what he knows from what he does not know, and I con- 
ceive he will be gradually initiated into the largest and truest 
philosophical views, and will feel nothing but impatience and 
'disgust at the random theories and imposing sophistries and 
^dashing paradoxes, which carry away half -formed and super- 
ficial intellects.® 



The education thus secured we denominate 'Uib- 
.eral" because it sets the reason free, making it at 
'home in every intellectual zone. The man who has 
I such a training 

apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the principles 
on which it rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its 
shades, its great points and its little, as he otherwise cannot 
apprehend them. Hence it is that his education is called 
* Ibid., pp. xix-xx. 



228 EDUCATION 

** Liberal/' A habit of mind is formed which lasts through 
life, of which the attributes are, freedom,, equitableness, calm- 
ness, moderation, and wisdomJ 

It is common to speak of '^liberal knowledge,'' of the 
^'liberal arts and studies," and of a *' liberal education," 
as the especial characteristic or property of a University and 
of a gentleman; what is really meant by the word? Now, 
first, in its grammatical sense it is opposed to servile; and 
by ''servile work" is understood, as our catechisms inform 
us, bodily labour, mechanical employment, and the like, in 
which the mind has little or no part. Parallel to such servile 
works are those arts, if they deserve the name, of which the 
poet speaks, which owe their origin and their method to haz- 
ard, not to skill ; as, for instance, the practice and operations 
of an empiric. As far as this contrast may be considered as 
a guide into the meaning of the word, liberal education and 
liberal pursuits are exercises of mind, of reason, of reflection. 

But we want something more for its explanation, for there 
are bodily exercises which are liberal, and mental exercises 
which are not so. For instance, in ancient times the practi- 
tioners in medicine were commonly slaves; yet it was an art 
as intellectual in its nature, in spite of the pretence, fraud, 
and quackery with which it might then, as now, be debased, 
as it was heavenly in its aim. And so in like manner, we 
contrast a liberal education with a commercial education 
or a professional; yet no one can deny that commerce and 
the professions afford scope for the highest and most diversi- 
fied powers of mind. There is then a great variety of intel- 
lectual exercises, which are not technically called ''liberal"; 
on the other hand, I say, there are exercises of the body 

'Ihid., p. 101. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 229 

which do receive that appellation. Such, for instance, was 
the palsestra, in ancient times; such the Olympic games, in 
which strength and dexterity of body as well as of mind 
gained the prize. In Xenophon we read of the young Persian 
nobility being taught to ride on horseback and to speak the 
truth ; both being among the accomplishments of a gentleman. 
War, too, however rough a profession, has ever been ac- 
counted liberal, unless in cases when it becomes heroic, which 
would introduce us to another subject.^ 

The principle of real dignity in Knowledge, its worth, its 
desirableness, considered irrespectively of its results, is this 
germ within it of a scientific or a philosophical process. This 
is how it comes to be an end in itself; this is why it admits 
of being called Liberal. Not to know the relative disposition 
of things is the state of slaves or children; to have mapped 
out the Universe is the boast, or at least the ambition, of 
Philosophy. . . . 

When, then, we speak of the communication of Knowl- 
edge as being Education, we thereby really imply that that 
Knowledge is a state or condition of mind; and since culti- 
vation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own sake, we 
are thus brought once more to the conclusion, which the 
word ''Liberal" and the word ''Philosophy" have already 
suggested, that there is a Knowledge, which is desirable, 
though nothing comes of it, as being of itself a treasure, and 
a sufficient remuneration of years of labour.^ 



Such an education has tremendous significances 
for the individual man and for the race : 



'Ibid., p. 106. 

» Ibid., pp. 113, 114. 



230 EDUCATION 

One main portion of intellectual education, of the labours 
of both school and university, is to remove the original dim- 
ness of the mind 's eye ; to strengthen and perfect its vision ; to 
enable it to look out into the world right forward, steadily and 
truly; to give the mind clearness, accuracy, precision; to 
enable it to use words aright, to understand what it says, 
to conceive justly what it thinks about, to abstract, compare, 
analyze, divide, define, and reason, correctly. There is a 
particular science which takes these matters in hand, and 
it is called logic ; but it is not by logic, certainly not by logic 
alone, that the faculty I speak of is acquired. The infant 
does not learn to spell and read the hues upon his retina by 
any scientific rule; nor does the student learn accuracy of 
thought by any manual or treatise. The instruction given 
him, of whatever kind, if it be really instruction, is mainly, 
or at least pre-eminently, this, — a discipline in accuracy of 
mind.^« 

The reason of man, thus disciplined, is not sim- 
ply a thinking machine: it is far other than 
mechanical. It 

does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of 
word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable 
to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into 
form, — for the mind is like the body. Boys outgrow their 
shape and their strength ; their limbs have to be knit together, 
and their constitution needs tone. Mistaking animal spirits 
for vigour, and overconfident in their health, ignorant what 
they can bear and how to manage themselves, they are immod- 
erate and extravagant ; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is 

^'Ihid., p. 332. 



ACCOEDIISrG TO JOHN NEWMAN 231 

an emblem of their minds; at first they have no principles 
laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to 
build upon; they have no discriminating convictions, and 
no grasp of consequences.^^ 

But perhaps the most comprehensive result of a 
liberal education lies in the enlargement of the 
mind of man. In sermon as well as in essay New- 
man refers to this precious consequence. 

However, a very little consideration will make it plain also, 
that knowledge itself, though a condition of the mind's en- 
largement, yet, whatever be its range, is not that very thing 
which enlarges it. Rather the foregoing instances show that 
this enlargement consists in the comparison of the subjects 
of knowledge one with another. We feel ourselves to be 
ranging freely, w^hen we not only learn something, but when 
we also refer it to what we knew before. It is not the mere 
addition to our knowledge which is the enlargement, but the 
change of place, the movement onwards, of that moral centre, 
to which w^hat we know and what we have been acquiring, 
the whole mass of our knowledge, as it were, gravitates. And 
therefore a philosophical cast of thought, or a comprehensive 
nynd, or wisdom in conduct or policy, implies a connected 
view of the old with the new; an insight into the bearing 
and influence of each part upon every other; without which 
there is no wliole, and could be no centre. It is the knowl- 
edge, not only of things, but of their mutual relations. It is 
organized, and therefore living knowledge.^- 

" Ibid., Preface, p. xvi. 

"''Oxford University Sermons," p. 287. 



232 EDUCATION 

Narrow minds have no power of throwing themselves into 
the minds of others. They have stiffened in one position, as 
limbs of the body subjected to confinement, or as our organs 
of speech, which after a while cannot learn new tones and 
inflections. They have already parcelled out to their own 
satisfaction the whole world of knowledge ; they have drawn 
their lines, and formed their classes, and given to each opin- 
ion, argument, principle, and party, its own locality; they 
profess to know where to find every thing; and they cannot 
learn any other disposition. They are vexed at new prin- 
ciples of arrangement, and grow giddy amid cross divisions; 
and, even if they make the effort, cannot master them. They 
think that any one truth excludes another which is distinct 
from it, and that every opinion is contrary to their own 
opinions which is not included in them. They cannot sepa- 
rate words from their own ideas, and ideas from their own 
associations; and if they attain any new view of a subject, 
it is but for a moment. They catch it one moment, and let 
it go the next ; and then impute to subtlety in it, or obscurity 
in its expression, what really arises from their own want of 
elasticity or vigour. And when they attempt to describe it in 
their own language, their nearest approximation to it is a 
mistake ; not from any purpose to be unjust, but because they 
are expressing the ideas of another mind, as it were, in 
translation.^^ 

The enlargement consists, not merely in the passive recep- 
tion into the mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown 
to it, but in the mind 's energetic and simultaneous action upon 
and towards and among those new ideas, which are rushing 
in upon it. It is the action of a formative power, reducing 
to order and meaning the matter of our acquirements; it is 

"Ibid., pp. 307-308. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 233 

a making the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own, 
or, to use a familiar word, it is a digestion of what we re- 
ceive, into the substance of our previous state of thought; 
and without this no enlargement is said to follow. There is 
no enlargement, unless there be a comparison of ideas one 
with another, as they come before the mind, and a systematiz- 
ing of them. We feel our minds to be growing and expanding 
then, when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to 
what we know already. It is not the mere addition to our 
knowledge that is the illumination; but the locomotion, the 
movement onwards, of that mental centre, to which both what 
we know, and what we are learning, the accumulating mass of 
our acquirements, gravitates.^* 

Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of expansion 
of mind, and the instrument of attaining to it; this cannot 
be denied, it is ever to be insisted on; I begin with it as a 
first principle; however, the very truth of it carries men 
too far, and confirms to them the notion that it is the whole 
of the matter. A narrow mind is thought to be that which 
contains little knowledge ; and an enlarged mind, that which 
holds a great deal ; and what seems to put the matter beyond 
dispute is, the fact of the great number of studies which are 
pursued in a University, by its very profession.^^ 



To give this liberal education, set forth thus in 
noblest and happy phrase and comprehensive and 
inspiring paragraph, is the primary purpose of a 
university. Its business is to make the mind a 

"''The Idea of a University,'' p. 134. 
"^IMd., p. 129. 



234 EDUCATION 

freeman of every nation, a happy citizen in every 
intellectual zone. 

This process of training, by which the intellect, instead 
of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or acci- 
dental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study 
or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception 
of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is 
called Liberal Education ; and though there is no one in whom 
it is carried as far as is conceivable, or whose intellect would 
be a pattern of what intellects should be made, yet there 
is scarcely any one but may gain an idea of what real train- 
ing is, and at least look towards it, and make its true scope 
and result, not something else, his standard of excellence ; and 
numbers there are who may submit themselves to it, and 
secure it to themselves in good measure. And to set forth 
the right standard, and to train according to it, and to 
help forward all students towards it according to their vari- 
ous capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a 
University.^* 

In giving such an education, the university, of 
course, is to provide a broad and general, not a 
technical, knowledge. Newman says : 

Here are two methods of Education; the end of the one 
is to be philosophical, of the other to be mechanical ; the one 
rises towards general ideas, the other is exhausted upon what 
is particular and external. Let me not be thought to deny 
the necessity, or to decry the benefit, of such attention to what 
is particular and practical, as belongs to the useful or me- 

"/fcid., pp. 152-153. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 235 

chanical arts; life could not go on without them; we owe 
our daily welfare to them; their exercise is the duty of the 
many, and we owe to the many a debt of gratitude for ful- 
filling that duty. I only say that Knowledge, in proportion 
as it tends more and more to be particular, ceases to be 
Knowledge. It is a question whether Knowledge can in any 
proper sense be predicated of the brute creation; without 
pretending to metaphysical exactness of phraseology, which 
would be unsuitable to an occasion like this, I say, it seems 
to me improper to call that passive sensation, or perception 
of things, which brutes seem to possess, by the name of Knowl- 
edge. When I speak of Knowledge, I mean something intel- 
lectual, something which grasps what it perceives through 
the senses; something which takes a view of things; which 
sees more than the senses convey; which reasons upon what 
it sees, and while it sees; which invests it with an idea. It 
expresses itself, not in a mere enunciation, but by an en- 
thymeme : it is of the nature of science from the first, and in 
this consists its dignity .^^ 

And so as regards intellectual culture, I am far from 
denying utility in this large sense as the end of Education, 
when I lay it down, that the culture of the intellect is a 
good in itself and its own end; I do not exclude from the 
idea of intellectual culture what it cannot but be, from the 
very nature of things; I only deny that we must be able to 
point out, before we have any right to call it useful, some 
art, or business, or profession, or trade, or work, as resulting 
from it, and as its real and complete end. The parallel is 
exact: — As the body may be sacrificed to some manual or 
other toil, whether moderate or oppressive, so may the intel- 

^'JbicL, pp. 112-113. 



236 EDUCATION 

lect be devoted to some specific profession ; and I do not call 
this the culture of the intellect. Again, as some member or 
organ of the body may be inordinately used and developed, 
so may memory, or imagination, or the reasoning faculty; 
and this again is not intellectual culture. On the other 
hand, as the body may be tended, cherished, and exercised 
with a simple view to its general health, so may the intellect 
also be generally exercised in order to its perfect state; and 
this is its cultivation. 

Again, as health ought to precede labour of the body, and 
as a man in health can do what an unhealthy man cannot 
do, and as of this health the properties are strength, energy, 
agility, graceful carriage and action, manual dexterity, and 
endurance of fatigue, so in like manner general culture of 
mind is the best aid to professional and scientific study, and 
educated men can do what illiterate cannot ; and the man who 
has learned to think and to reason and to compare and to 
discriminate and to analyze, who has refined his taste, and 
formed his judgment, and sharpened his mental vision, will 
not indeed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, 
or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man 
of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a 
geologist, or an antiquarian, but he will be placed in that 
state of intellect in which he can take up any one of the 
sciences or callings I have referred to, or any other for which 
he has a taste or special talent, with kn ease, a grace, a 
versatility, and a success, to which another is a stranger. In 
this sense then, and as yet I have said but a very few words on 
a large subject, mental culture is emphatically useful}^ 

^Ihid., pp. 165-166. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 237 

The task, therefore, of founding and carrying 
forward a university is among the noblest which 
can engage the powers of man : 

To set on foot and to maintain in life and vigour a real 
University, is confessedly, as soon as the word "University" 
is understood, one of those greatest works, great in their 
difficulty and their importance, on which are deservedly ex- 
pended the rarest intellects and the most varied endowments. 
For, first of all, it professes to teach whatever has to be 
taught in any whatever department of human knowledge, and 
it embraces in its scope the loftiest subjects of human thought, 
and the richest fields of human inquiry. Nothing is too vast, 
nothing too subtle, nothing too distant, nothing too minute, 
nothing too discursive, nothing too exact, to engage its 
attention.^^ 

This, Gentlemen, is why I say that to erect a University is 
at once so arduous and beneficial an undertaking, viz., be- 
cause it is pledged to admit, without fear, without prejudice, 
without compromise, all comers, if they come in the name 
of Truth; to adjust views, and experiences, and habits of 
mind the most independent and dissimilar; and to give full 
play to thought and erudition in their most original forms, 
and their most intense expressions, and in their most ample 
circuit. Thus to draw many things into one, is its special 
function; and it learns to do it, not by rules reducible to 
writing, but by sagacity, wisdom, and forbearance, acting 
upon a profound insight into the subject-matter of knowledge, 
and by a vigilant repression of aggression or bigotry in any 
quarter.2° 

" Ihid., p. 457. 
^lUd., p. 458. 



238 EDUCATION 

What an empire is in political history, such is a University 
in the sphere of philosophy and research. It is, as I have 
said, the high protecting power of all knowledge and science, 
of fact and principle, of inquiry and discovery, of experiment 
and speculation; it maps out the territory of the intellect, 
and sees that the boundaries of each province are religiously 
respected, and that there is neither encroachment nor sur- 
render on any side. It acts as umpire between truth and 
truth, and, taking into account the nature and importance 
of each, assigns to all their due order of precedence. It main- 
tains no one department of thought exclusively, however ample 
and noble; and it sacrifices none. It is deferential and loyal, 
according to their respective weight, to the claims of litera- 
ture, of physical research, of history, of metaphysics, of theo- 
logical science. It is impartial towards them all, and pro- 
motes each in its own place and for its own object.^^ 

The sum of the work of a university on its human 
side may be said to be that : 

Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catho- 
lic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentleman, it is 
well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, 
equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing 
in the conduct of life; — these are the connatural qualities 
of a large knowledge ; they are the objects of a University. ^^ 

In one of the greatest of all passages of litera- 
ture Newman sums up the purpose and service of a 
university in his interpretation of a gentleman : 

"^Ibid., p. 459. 
'^Ibid., p. 120. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 239 

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one 
who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, 
as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely 
removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembar- 
rassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their 
movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His bene- 
fits may be considered as parallel to what are called com- 
forts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: 
like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dis- 
pelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means 
of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman 
in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or 
a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast ; — all clash- 
ing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspi- 
cion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to 
make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes 
on all his company ; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle 
towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd ; he can 
recollect to whom he is speaking ; he guards against unseason- 
able allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom 
prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes 
light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiv- 
ing when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except 
when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he 
has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing 
motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every- 
thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his dis- 
putes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes person- 
alities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil 
which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, 
he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should 
ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one 



240 EDUCATION 

day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be 
affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember 
injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, for- 
bearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he sub- 
mits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because 
it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If 
he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined in- 
tellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of 
better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt 
weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake 
the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, mis- 
conceive their adversary, and leave the question more in- 
volved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his 
opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as 
simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. No- 
where shall we find greater candour, consideration, in- 
dulgence : he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, 
he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of 
human reason as well as its strength, its province and its 
limits. If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and 
large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he 
is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He 
respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions 
as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent ; 
he honours the ministers of religion, and it contents him to 
decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. 
He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only be- 
cause his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of 
faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness 
and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civili- 
zation. ^^ 

'^Ibid., pp. 208-210. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 241 

A liberal education, the giving of which is the 
peculiar and beautiful purpose of a university, 
represents activity of the intellectual forces of 
man. With charming irony Newman discourses on 
securing such an education without money and 
without the price of toil. 

Learning is to be without exertion, without attention, with- 
out toil ; without grounding, without advance, without finish- 
ing. There is to be nothing individual in it; and this, for 
sooth, is the wonder of the age. What the steam engine does 
with matter, the printing press is to do with mind; it is to 
act mechanically, and the population is to be passively, almost 
unconsciously enlightened, by the mere multiplication and 
dissemination of volumes. Whether it be the school boy, or 
the school girl, or the youth at college, or the mechanic in 
the town, or the politician in the senate, all have been the 
victims in one way or other of this most preposterous and 
pernicious of delusions. Wise men have lifted up their voices 
in vain; and at length, lest their own institutions should be 
outshone and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they 
have been obliged, as far as they could with a good conscience, 
to humour a spirit which they could not withstand, and make 
temporizing concessions at which they could not but inwardly 
smile.^* 

And 3^et learning is not to be made a mechanical 
process, but an unconscious growth and vital ab- 
sorption of forces. 

^Ihid., pp. 142-143. 



242 EDUCATION 

I protest to you, Gentlemen, that if I had to choose be- 
tween a so-called University, which dispensed with residence 
and tutorial superintendence, and gave its degrees to any 
person who passed an examination in a wide range of sub- 
jects, and a University which had no professors or examina- 
tions at all, but merely brought a number of young men 
together for three or four years, and then sent them away as 
the University of Oxford is said to have done some sixty years 
since, if I were asked which of these two methods was the 
better discipline of the intellect, — mind, I do not say which 
is morally the better, for it is plain that compulsory study 
must be a good and idleness an intolerable mischief, — but if 
I must determine which of the two courses was the more 
successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which 
sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which 
produced better public men, men of the world, men whose 
names would descend to posterity, I have no hesitation in 
giving the preference to that University which did nothing, 
over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with 
every science under the sun.^^ 



In this educative process, tlie learned cardinal 
gives an exalted place to religion. Religion repre- 
sents the greatest thoughts which influence or in- 
struct the mind and the noblest emotions which fill 
the heart. To persons who are said to be unedu- 
cated religion seems often to give an enlargement 
of the mind which is nothing less than a liberal 

» Ihid., p. 145. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 243 

education. The new birth of the heart produces 
an intellectual new birth. 

It is often remarked of uneducated persons, who hitherto 
have Uved without seriousness, that on their turning to God, 
looking into themselves, regulating their hearts, reforming 
their conduct, and studying the inspired Word, they seem 
to become, in point of intellect, different beings from what 
they were before. Before, they took things as they came, 
and thought no more of one thing than of another. But 
now every event has a meaning; they form their own esti- 
mate of whatever occurs; they recollect times and seasons; 
and the world, instead of being like the stream which the 
countryman gazed on, ever in motion and never in prog- 
ress, is a various and complicated drama, with parts and with 
an object.^® 

The education which is given by religion, or 
which is given in the atmosphere of the institutions 
of religion, is still to be free and liberal. Ward 
quotes a remark of the cardinal made in his first 
university sermon in Dublin, to the effect: 

Some persons will say that I am thinking of confining, dis- 
torting, and stunting the growth of the intellect by ecclesi- 
astical supervision. I have no such thought. Nor have I 
any thought of a compromise, as if religion must give up 
something, and science something. I wish the intellect to 
range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an 
equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is, that they 

***Oxford University Sermons,'^ p. 285. 



244 EDUCATION 

should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified 
in the same persons. I want to destroy that diversity of cen- 
tres which puts everything into confusion by creating a con- 
trariety of influences. I wish the same spots and the same 
individuals to be at once oracles of philosophy and shrines of 
devotion. I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and 
the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.^^ 

Newman believes that the Catholic church should 
have colleges for its own members. The Dublin 
experiment, even though it proved to be a failure, 
testifies to the sincerity of his deep conviction. 

As to Oxford and Cambridge, it is quite plain that the 
Church ought to have Schools (Universities) of her own. 
She can in Ireland — she can 't in England, a Protestant coun- 
try. How are you to prepare young Catholics for taking 
part in life, in filling stations in a Protestant country as Eng- 
land, without going to the English Universities? Impossi- 
ble. Either then refuse to let Catholics avail themselves of 
these privileges, of going into Parliament, of taking their 
seat in the House of Lords, of becoming Lawyers, Commis- 
sioners, etc. etc. or let them go there, where alone they will 
be able to put themselves on a par with Protestants. Argu- 
ment the 1st. 

2. They will get more harm in London life than at Oxford 
or Cambridge. A boy of 19 goes to some London office, with 
no restraint — he goes at that age to Oxford or Cambridge, 
and is at least under some restraint, 

3. Why are you not consistent, and forbid him to go into 

« Ward's "Life of, 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 245 

the Army? why don't you forbid him to go to such an 
''Academy" at Woolwich? He may get at Woolwich as 
much harm in his faith and morals as at the Universities. 

4. There are two sets at Oxford. What Fr. B. says of 
the good set being small, is bosh. At least I have a right 
to know better than he. What can he know about my means 
of knowledge? I was Tutor (in a very rowing College, and 
was one of those who changed its character). I was Dean 
of discipline — I was Pro-proctor. The good set was not a 
small set — tho' it varied in number in different colleges.^^ 

Literature, moreover, as well as religion, bears a 
close relation to the higher education. Of litera- 
ture, in a characteristic passage, this master of 
style says : 

If a literature be, as I have said, the voice of a particular 
nation, it requires a territory and a period, as large as that 
nation's extent and history, to mature in. It is broader and 
deeper than the capacity of any body of men, however gifted, 
or any system of teaching, however true. It is the exponent, 
not of truth, but of nature, which is true only in its elements. 
It is the result of the mutual action of a hundred simultaneous 
influences and operations, and the issue of a hundred strange 
accidents in independent places and times; it is the scanty 
compensating produce of the wild discipline of the world 
and of life, so fruitful in failures; and it is the concen- 
tration of those rare manifestations of intellectual power 
which no one can account for. It is made up, in the particular 
language here under consideration, of human beings as 

^lUd., Vol. XL, p. 70. 



246 EDUCATION 

heterogeneous as Burns and Bunyan, De Foe and Johnson, 
Goldsmith and Cowper, Law and Fielding, Scott and Byron. 
The remark has been made that the history of an author 
is the history of his works; it is far more exact to say that, 
at least in the case of great writers, the history of their works 
is the history of their fortunes or their times. Each is, 
in his turn, the man of his age, the type of a generation, 
or the interpreter of a crisis. He is made for his day, and his 
day for him. Hooker would not have been, but for the exist- 
ence of Catholics and Puritans, the defeat of the former and 
the rise of the latter; Clarendon would not have been with- 
out the Great Rebellion ; Hobbes is the prophet of the reaction 
to scoffing infidelity; and Addison is the child of the Revo- 
lution and its attendant changes. If there be any of our 
classical authors, who might at first sight have been pro- 
nounced a University man, with the exception of Johnson, 
Addison is he; yet even Addison, the son and brother of 
clergymen, the fellow of an Oxford Society, the resident of 
a College which still points to the walk which he planted, 
must be something more, in order to take his place among 
the Classics of the language, and owed the variety of his 
matter to his experience of life, and to the call made on his 
resources by the exigencies of his day. The world he lived in 
made him and used him. While his writings educated his 
own generation, they have delineated it for all posterity after 
him.^® 



In the appreciation of literature, and also as 
helpful in writing, Newman made some notes in 
the year 1868. They are perhaps no less useful in 

"''The Idea of a University," p. 311. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 247 

1916 and for general purposes, though they were 
made primarily on the writing of sermons: 

1. A man should be in earnest, by which I mean he should 
write not for the sake of writing, but to bring out his 
thoughts. 

2. He should never aim at being eloquent. 

3. He should keep his idea in view, and should write sen- 
tences over and over again till he has expressed his mean- 
ing accurately, forcibly, and in few words. 

4. He should aim at being understood by his hearers or 
readers. 

5. He should use words which are likely to be understood. 
Ornament and amplification will come spontaneously in due 
time, but he should never seek them. 

6. He must creep before he can fly, by which I mean that 
humility which is a great Christian virtue has a place in lit- 
erary composition. 

7. He who is ambitious will never write well, but he who 
tries to say simply what he feels, what religion demands, 
what faith teaches, what the Gospel promises, will be elo- 
quent without intending it, and will write better English than 
if he made a study of English literature.^*^ 

In this relation it may not be amiss to quote his 
remark in respect to the hardship he found in his 
own writing. The remark illustrates the old truth 
that hard writing makes easy reading. 

If I had my way I should give myself up to verse-making; 
it is nearly the only kind of composition which is not a 
*• Ward's *'Life of," etc., Vol. II., p. 335. 



248 EDUCATION 

trouble to me, but I have never had time. As to my prose 
volumes, I have scarcely written any one without an external 
stimulus ; their composition has been to me, in point of pain, 
a mental childbearing, and I have been accustomed to say 
to myself : * * In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. ' ' ^^ 

Thus writes Newman of the nature of the human 
reason as touched by the liberalizing force of edu- 
cation. His interpretations are among the most 
moving ever given to the mind of a man to offer 
to his fellows. Education, he says, further, is a 
social process. His objections, therefore, to soli- 
tary self -education are weighty, and it may be 
added, timely: 

Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most restricted 
sense, is preferable to a system of teaching which, professing 
so much, really does so little for the mind. Shut your Col- 
lege gates against the votary of knowledge, throw him back 
upon the searchings and the efforts of his own mind; he 
will gain by being spared an entrance into your Babel. Few 
indeed there are who can dispense with the stimulus and 
support of instructors, or will do anything at all, if left to 
themselves. And fewer still (though such great minds are 
to be found), who will not, from such unassisted attempts, 
contract a self-reliance and a self-esteem, which are not only 
moral evils, but serious hindrances to the attainment of 
truth. And next to none, perhaps, or none, who will not 
be reminded from time to time of the disadvantage under 

»I&td., p. 204. 



ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 249 

which they lie, by their imperfect grounding, by the breaks, 
deficiencies, and irregularities of their knowledge, by the 
eccentricity of opinion and the confusion of principle which 
they exhibit. They will be too often ignorant of what every 
one knows and takes for granted, of that multitude of small 
truths which fall upon the mind like dust, impalpable and 
ever accumulating ; they may be unable to converse, they may 
argue perversely, they may pride themselves on their worst 
paradoxes or their grossest truisms, they may be full of their 
own mode of viewing things, unwilling to be put out of their 
way, slow to enter into the minds of others ; — but, with these 
and whatever other liabilities upon their heads, they are likely 
to have more thought, more mind, more philosophy, more true 
enlargement, than those earnest but ill-used persons, who are 
forced to load their minds with a score of subjects against an 
examination, who have too much on their hands to indulge 
themselves in thinking or investigation, who devour premiss 
and conclusion together with indiscriminate greediness, who 
hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstrations to 
memory, and who too often, as might be expected, when their 
period of education is passed, throw up all they have learned 
in disgust, having gained nothing really by their anxious 
labours, except perhaps the habit of application.^^ 

In Newman, the ecclesiastic, the scholar, the 
writer, the educationist, are united apparently con- 
tradictory principles and methods of thought. A 
cardinal of the Eoman Catholic Church, he yet was 
for a time a rector of the University of his Church 
and as rector was obliged to secure for young men 

^*'The Idea of a University," pp. 148-149. 



250 EDUCATION 

a rational point of view of the fundamental disci- 
plines, of scholarship, and of learning. Noble were 
the pleas and strong the arguments which this 
ecclesiastic made for intellectual freedom within 
academic walls. He sought in practice and in writ- 
ing to reconcile scientific research with theological 
development. He wished to create in the same 
personalities able thinkers and loyal Roman Cath- 
olic believers. He sought within the same academic 
hall to erect the altar of faith and the chemical 
laboratory. He desired to create and to nurture a 
religious education which should be liberal and 
liberalizing to the minds of the students, and also 
to promote a liberal education which should con- 
firm their belief in the traditions and doctrines of 
his historic Church. He tried to do what many 
today would declare cannot be done. But his inter- 
pretations of the educational and religious condi- 
tions attending his endeavors are full of meaning, 
and his whole conception of the nature and func- 
tions, of the purposes and results, of that educa- 
tional process is pregnant with lasting lessons to 
the mind and the conscience of man. 



VIII 

EDUCATION ACCORDING TO GOETHE 

GOETHE was the most universal mind of his 
time — and his time was long and significant — 
and one of the universal minds of any X3eriod. His 
is a unique place like that belonging to Leonardo 
da Vinci and Bruno. If one does not feel quite 
free to apply to him the words which are applied to 
Socrates in the last paragraph of Phaedo, ^Hhe 
wisest, justest and best of all the men whom I have 
ever known, ' ' one can at least say that his was one 
of the most human and humanistic lives lived in all 
the centuries. 

The main currents of Goethe's development were 
fed by three great springs, the Greek, the Chris- 
tian, and the modern search for natural truth and 
law. From the first came his serenity, from the 
second his joy, and from the third, his rapture in 
revelation. Natural law he held to be divine law. 
Pursuing the middle course in life, he was free 
from the fantastic and eccentric, and he embodied 
the moderation which lies between original un- 

251 



252 EDUCATION 

r 

restrained nature, and the artificial restricted life 
of man. The light of wisdom burned for him 
throughout his journey. He had a clear eye for the 
concrete, the actual, the living. Truth and duty 
rested over him and his great career as a nimbus. 

The universality of his relationship emerges in 
the place of his birth as well as in more personal 
conditions and forces. Frankfort in the year 1749 
and the years following his birth was a mediaeval 
fortress, treasuring the memorials of the Middle 
Ages, yet being a center of commerce and of indus- 
trialism. The ancient and the modern were joined 
together in peaceful picturesqueness. The ancient 
storks still looked down from their gables upon the 
affairs of modern mercantile life. 

The home, too, united diverse conditions. It was 
a German home in its origin, yet the husband and 
the father had lived in Italy and the house in pic- 
ture and other memorial bore evidences of his resi- 
dence in that historic peninsula. It was, moreover, 
a home of simple competencies standing midway 
between poverty and wealth. It represented the 
Aristotelian golden mean in which are gathered up 
the most enduring results, and the most inspiring 
forces, of human achievement and personal char- 
acter. 



ACCOEDING TO GOETHE 253 

The age as well as the place was significant. It is 
not without meaning, that, in the year of Goethe's 
birth, Rousseau was arguing with the encyclopae- 
dists, Gibbon was trying to master the grammar of 
the people whose history he was to write, Johnson 
was making his dictionary, and Buff on published 
the first volume of his natural history. 

But it is still more significant that within the 
greatest period of his life, in the last decades of the 
eighteenth, and the first of the nineteenth, century, 
are united the rise and the fall of Napoleon. In 
this period are seen finally the close of the middle 
ages, and the ultimate dissolution of the Holy 
Eoman Empire. It was also the period of the rise 
of the transcendental movement in philosophic in- 
terpretation. It was the age of Kant, who, in his 
provincial university of Koenigsberg, rubbed off 
the dimness of the vision of philosophy and gave 
to it a new outlook and inlook, and a consequent 
new life. It was the age of Fichte, of the Von 
Humboldts, and of the founding of the University 
of Berlin, a child of hope, born in a day of despair, 
that has in many w^ays for a hundred years, led the 
prof ounder thought of humanity. Most material- 
istic and most spiritual were the forces of the 
period which Goethe's life covered. 



254 EDUCATION 

Goethe has hnnself pictured this life : 

The epoch in which we were living might be called an epoch 
of high requisitions, for every one demanded of himself and 
of others what no mortal had hitherto accomplished. On 
chosen spirits who could think and feel, a light had arisen, 
which enabled them to see that an immediate, original un- 
derstanding of nature, and a course of action based upon it, 
was both the best thing a man could desire, and also not 
difficult to attain. Experience thus once more became the 
universal watchword, and every one opened his eyes as wide 
as he could. Physicians, especially, had a most pressing call 
to labour to this end, and the best opportunity for finding it. 
Upon them a star shone out of antiquity, which could serve 
as an example of all that was to be desired. The writings 
which had come down to us under the name of Hippocrates, 
furnished a model of the way in which a man should both 
observe the world and relate what he had seen, without mix- 
ing up himself with it. But no one considered that we can- 
not see like the Greeks, and that we shall never become such 
poets, sculptors, and physicians as they were. Even granted 
that we could learn from them, still the results of experience 
already gone through, were almost beyond number, and be- 
sides were not always of the clearest kind ; moreover had too 
often been made to accord with preconceived opinions. All 
these were to be mastered, discriminated, and sifted. This 
also, was an immense demand. Then again it was required 
that each observer, in his personal sphere and labours, should 
acquaint himself with the true, healthy nature, as if she were 
now for the first time noticed and attended, and thus only 
what was genuine and real was to be learned. But as, in gen- 
eral, learning can never exist without the accompaniment 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 255 

of a universal smattering and a universal pedantry, nor the 
practice of any profession without empiricism and char- 
latanry, so there sprung up a violent conflict, the purpose of 
which was to guard use from abuse, and place the kernel 
high above the shell in men's estimation. In the execution 
of this design, it was perceived that the shortest way of 
getting out of the affair, was to call in the aid of genius, 
whose magic gifts could settle the strife, and accomplish what 
was required. Meanwhile, however, the understanding med- 
dled with the matter; all it alleged must be reduced to clear 
notions, and exhibited in a logical form, that every preju- 
dice might be put aside and all superstition destroyed.^ 

The interpretations which Goethe gives to educa- 
tion are found scattered throughout his numberless 
works. The autobiography of Wilhehn Meister, 
however, contains possibly the most pregnant and 
important parts. But from the reports of the con- 
versations, covering several decades, may be drawn 
forth sentiments and judgments, often embodied 
in single sentences, which have large meaning. 

These opinions, like Goethe's character, often 
unite opposing doctrines and antagonistic intima- 
tions. They are also, like his own education, fre- 
quently without orderliness, filled with sentiments 
which would not bear logical analyzing, yet which, 
as by a sudden rift of light, give guidance in ob- 

^ * ' The Autobiography of Goethe, ' ' John Oxenf ord. Bell 's edition, 
1903, Vol. II., pp. 54, 55. 



256 EDUCATION 

scurity, and insjDiration to indifference, in thinking. 
A single verse of Faust may have as deep educa- 
tional significance as a whole paragraph of the 
scientific work on optics. The by-products of a 
great mind, working in any field, are often indeed 
more precious than the direct results of the hard 
labor of a second-rate intellect. 

The principles which through these diverse ma- 
terials may be found and brought to light, are also 
more or less contradictory, yet even possibly be- 
cause of their opposing content, they may often be 
joined together in a stronger and larger unity. 

One of the great principles of Goethe lies in the 
assurance that education consists rather in the un- 
folding of the powers with which the mind is orig- 
inally endowed, than in the engrafting of forces 
upon the mind, however vital, from without. To 
him, education is primarily subjective. 

To labor for his own moral culture, is the simplest and 
most practicable thing which man can propose to himself; 
the impulse is inborn in him ; while in social life both reason 
and love, prompt or rather force him to do so.^ 

Man may seek his higher destination on earth or in heaven, 
in the present or in the future, he yet remains on this account 
exposed to an eternal wavering, to an influence from without 
which ever disturbs him, until he once for all makes a reso- 

'IMd., p. 74. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 257 

lution to declare that that is right, which is suitable to him- 
self.3 

For he too was a child of nature, — ^he too had worked his 
way upwards. What others had been compelled to cast away, 
he had never possessed; relations of society from which they 
would have to emancipate themselves, had never fettered him. 
Thus might he be regarded as one of the purest disciples 
of that gospel of nature, and in view of his own persevering 
efforts and his conduct as a man and . son, he might well 
exclaim, *^A11 is good as it comeis frorii the hands of nature!'* 
But the conclusion, * * All.::i^" corrupted in the hands of man ! ' ' 
was also forced upoil' tim by adverse experience.* 

Let man, we say, learn to think of himself as being with- 
out any enduring external relation; let him seek for consist- 
ency not in his surroundings but in himself: there he will 
find it; cherish and foster it with love; he will form and 
educate himself so as to be everywhere at home. He who 
devotes himself to what is most necessary, goes everywhere 
most surely to his goal. Others, on the contrary, seeking what 
is higher, more subtle, have, even in the choice of their road, 
to be more' circumspect.^ 

To speak it in a word; the cultivation of my individual 
self, here as I am, has from my youth upwards been con- 
stantly though dimly my wish and my purpose. The same 
intention I still cherish, but the means of realizing it are now 
grown somewhat clearer. I have seen more of life than thou 
believest, and profited more by it also. Give some attention 

*Ihid., Vol. I., p. 400. 
* IMd., Vol. II., p. 6. 

■^Wilhelm Meister^s *' Wander jahre,'' Edward Bell. Bell's editioa, 
1892, p. 366. 



258 EDUCATION 

then to what I say, though it should not altogether tally with 
thy own opinions. 

Had I been a nobleman, our dispute would soon have been 
decided ; but being a simple burgher, I must take a path of 
my own; I know not how it is in foreign countries; but in 
Germany, a universal, and if I may say so, personal cultiva- 
tion is beyond the reach of any one except a nobleman. A 
burgher may acquire merit ; by excessive efforts he may even 
educate his mind ; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse 
than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman, 
frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to 
give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither 
door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an uncon- 
strained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person, 
are a part of his possessions, and it may be the most neces- 
sary part, — he has reason enough to put some value on them, 
and to show that he puts some. A certain stately grace in 
common things, a sort of gay elegance in earnest and im- 
portant ones, becomes him well ; for it shows him to be every- 
where in equilibrium. He is a public person, and the more 
cultivated his movements, the more sonorous his voice, the 
more staid and measured his whole being is, the more per- 
fect is he. If to high and low, to friends and relations, he 
continues still the same, then nothing can be said against 
him, none may wish him otherwise. His coldness must be 
reckoned clearness of head, his dissimulation prudence. If 
he can rule himself externally at every moment of his life, 
no man has aught more to demand of him ; and whatever else 
there may be in him or about him, capacities, talents, wealth, 
all seem gifts of supererogation.* 

•Wilhelm Meister's ^'Lehrjahre," Thomas Carlyle. Centenary edi- 
tion, Vol. I.J pp. 327, 328. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 259 

But, in the sum and substance of Goethe's ex- 
periencing mind, one easily finds a high place given 
to what are called the classics. Early did Goethe 
surrender himself to the ancient masters. He 
says: 

But a leading conviction, which was continually revived 
within me, was that of the importance of the ancient tongues ; 
since from amidst this literary hurly-burly, thus much con- 
tinually forced itself upon me, that in them were preserved 
all the models of oratory, and at the same time everything 
else of worth that the world has ever possessed. Hebrew, 
together with biblical studies, had retired into the back- 
ground, and Greek likewise, since my acquaintance with it did 
not extend beyond the New Testament. I therefore the more 
zealously kept to Latin, the master-pieces in which lie nearer 
to us, and which, besides its splendid original productions, 
offers us the other wealth of all ages in translations, and 
the works of the greatest scholars. I consequently read much 
in this language, with great ease, and was bold enough to 
believe I understood the authors, because I missed nothing 
of the literal sense. Indeed I was very indignant when I 
heard that Grotius had insolently declared *'he did not read 
Terence as boys do. ' ' Happy narrow-mindedness of youth ! — 
nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of 
their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after 
neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the 
deep, but merely after that which is suited to them. 

I had thus learned Latin, like German, French and Eng- 
lish, merely by practice, without rules, and without concep- 
tion. Whoever knows the condition of school instruction then, 



260 EDUCATION 

will not think it strange that I skipped grammar as well 
as rhetoric; all seemed to me to come together naturally; I 
retained the words, their forms and inflexions, in my ear 
and mind, and used the language with ease in writing and 
in chattering.^ 

He also affirms in particular that the great forces 
of civilization are found in the Bible, in Plato and 
in Aristotle. 

In the history of the development of knowledge the Bible, 
Aristotle, and Plato have been the dominant factors; and to 
these three bases we must always return. Neo-platonists, they 
say ; well, that means coming back to Plato. 

Scholasticism, and that Kant is bringing back scholasticism ; 
that is, Aristotle. And of course one returns to the Bible.* 

Yet, while emphasizing the value of the ancient 
classics, by parity of earnestness and of reasoning 
he commends the modern sciences. 

For more than a century now the humanities have ceased 
to influence the minds of those who pursue them, and it is 
fortunate that Nature has stepped in, drawn the interest 
to herself, and opened to us from her threshold the road of 
humanity. 

That the humanities do not shape morals! It is by no 
means necessary that everyone study the humanities, those 
knowledges — historical antiquarian, belletristic, and artistic 
— that have come to us out of antiquity and belong to it — 

"*The Autobiography of Goethe," etc.. Vol. L, p. 200. 
«**Oonversations," Weimar, 1808, F. V. Biedermann, Vol. I., p. 520. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 261 

are by this time so diffused that they need no longer be de- 
rived immediately from the ancients, unless one wished to put 
his whole life-time upon it. Then culture of this sort becomes 
again one-sided, which has no advantage over any other one- 
sided culture, indeed, falls below it, because it cannot be nor 
become productive.® 

What a world of treasures lies in the sciences, how ever 
increasingly rich one finds them to be! How much that is 
wiser, greater, nobler than we, has lived, and we mortals 
imagine that we alone are wise! A people that possesses 
a morning paper, a fashionable journal, a free-lance organ 
(Freimiitigen) is already quite lost. How much better is 
the so-often decried reading of novels, which has produced 
such a tremendously broad, even if not sound, culture.^^ 

To Goethe, self-education has many values. 
Self -discipline may be very real, not only in will, 
but also in intellect. His beliefs are largely a 
transcript of his own educational experiences. 

Only that I may not have to pursue any thing as a voca- 
tion! I will do all that I can playingly, whatever comes to 
me and as long as the inclination to it lasts. So I played un- 
consciously in youth; and so I will continue consciously 
through the rest of my life. Useful — use, that is your affair. 
You want to use me ; but I cannot adjust myself to sale and 
demand. What I can do and understand, that you shall use, 
as soon as you wish and have need. I will not give myself 
up as a tool; and every profession is a tool, or, if you wish 
it expressed more elegantly, an organ. ^^ 

" Ibid., Vol. II., p. 6. " lUd., p. 10. 

"** Conversations, " Weimar, 1807, etc., Vol. I., p. 472. 



262 EDUCATION 

It is, therefore, an education, which, in modem 
phrase, we call broad, in which Goethe believed. It 
was an education as wide as humanity, as diverse 
as the qualities of the human mind, as high and as 
deep as human achievements, and as the forces out 
of which these achievements are made. The classi- 
cist may claim him as a disciple, and the scientist 
may also declare him to be his apostle. The culture 
which he embodied and promulgated lay, like the 
kingdom of Heaven, four square. Although the 
mind and sentiments of Goethe are fundamentally 
unlike those of John Stuart Mill, yet the German 
and the Englishman are united in the belief that 
the human intellect and character are worthy to re- 
ceive, and should accept, a training as high as 
divinity can inspire, as broad as life can embrace, 
and as deep as destiny can fathom. 

Yet although Goethe's conception of education 
is as broad as man's nature, it is still to be adjusted 
to man's specific needs. Goethe affirms and argues 
that education is to be devoted to special ends. 
These ends are often of a character which proves 
that they arise from more immediate wants. 
Goethe would educate man for his place, for his 
times, for his station in society, and for the fulfill- 
ing of his duty to his family, and to the state. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 263 

The capabilities that lie in men can be divided into gen- 
eral and special; the general are to be regarded as activi- 
ties in a state of balanced repose, which are aroused by cir- 
cumstances, and directed accidentally to this or that end. 
Man's faculty of imitation is general: he will make or form 
in imitation of what he sees, even without the slightest inward 
and outward means to that end. It is always natural, there- 
fore, that he should wish to do what he sees to be done : the 
most natural thing, however, would be that the son should 
embrace the occupation of his father. In this case it is all 
in one, a decided activity in an original direction, with prob- 
ably an inborn faculty for a special end; then a resultant 
and gradually progressive exercise and a developed talent, 
that would have compelled us to proceed upon the beaten 
path, even if other impulses are developed within us, and 
a free choice might have led us to an occupation for which 
nature has given us neither capacity nor perseverance. On 
the average, therefore, those men are the happiest who find 
an opportunity of cultivating an inborn, family talent in the 
domestic circle. We have seen painter-pedigrees of this sort : 
amongst them there have been feeble talents, it is true, but in 
the meantime, they have brought to light something useful, 
and perhaps better than they would have achieved with mod- 
erate powers in any other department of their own ehoice.^^ 

''Your universal culture," said he, "and all institutions 
for that end, are foolishness. The thing is, that a man should 
understand something quite definitely, do it with an excel- 
lence which scarce anyone else in the immediate neighbour- 
hood could attain ; and in our association particularly this is 
a self-evident matter. You are just of an age when a man 
forms any plan with intelligence, judges what lies before him 

"Wilhelm Meister's *'Wanderjahre," etc., pp. 269-270. 



264 EDUCATION 

with discernment, grapples with it from the right side, and 
directs his capacities and abilities to the right end.''^^ 

But the main thing will be, when shall we find ourselves 
at the place and spot ? ^* 

He was, for a time at least, convinced that education ought 
in every case to be adapted to the inclinations: his present 
views of it I know not. He maintained that with man the 
first and last consideration was activity, and that we could 
not act on anything, without the proper gifts for it, without 
an instinct impelling us to it. ' * You admit, ' ' he used to say, 
**that poets must be born such; you admit this with regard 
to all professors of the fine arts ; because you must admit it, 
because those workings of human nature cannot very plausi- 
bly be aped. But if we consider well, we shall find that every 
capability, however slight, is born with us: that there is no 
vague general capability in men. It is our ambiguous dissi- 
pating -education that makes men uncertain: it awakens 
wishes, when it should be animating tendencies; instead of 
forwarding our real capacities, it turns our efforts towards 
objects which are frequently discordant with the mind that 
aims at them. I augur better of a child, a youth who is 
wandering astray on a path of his own, than of many who 
are walking aright upon paths which are not theirs. If the 
former, either by themselves, or by the guidance of others, 
ever finds the right path, that is to say, the path which suits 
their nature, they will never leave it; while the latter are in 
danger every moment of shaking off a foreign yoke, and aban- 
doning themselves to unrestricted license.*'^* 

"/bid., p. 282. 
" IMd., p. 383. 
"Wilhelm Meister*8 "Lehrjahre,'' etc., Vol. IT., p. 100. 



ACUORDINa TO GOETHE 265 

In this education wliich is at once broad and spe- 
cial, are to be united what we now call the practical 
and the theoretical. The deed and the thought are 
to be joined. The deed without the thought may 
be illogical, arbitrary, harmful, disastrous. The 
thought w^ithout the deed, is vain and unavailing. 
Life in thought and for action was his ideal. In the 
Travels is this double activity often commended. 

Thinking and Doing, Doing and Thinking, from all time 
admitted, from all time practised, but not discerned by every 
one. Like expiration and inhalation, the two must for ever 
be pulsating backwards and forwards in life; like question 
and answer, the one cannot exist without the other. Who- 
ever makes for himself a law — which the genius of human 
understanding secretly whispers into the ear of every new- 
born child — to test Doing by Thinking, Thinking by Doing, 
he cannot go astray; and if he does go astray, he will soon 
find himself on the right way again.^^ 

Many-sidedness prepares, in point of fact, only the ele- 
ment in which the one-sided man can work, who just at this 
time has room enough given him. Yes, now is the time for 
the one-sided; well for him who comprehends it, and who 
works for himself and others in this mind. In certain things 
it is understood thoroughly and at once. Practise till you are 
an able violinist, and be assured that the director will have 
pleasure in assigning you a place in the orchestra. Make 
an instrument of yourself, and wait and see what sort of place 
humanity will kindly grant you in universal life. Let us 
break off. Whoso will not believe, let him follow his own 

"Wilhelm Meister's *' Wander jahre," etc., p. 264. 



266 EDUCATION 

path: he too will succeed sometimes; but I say it is need- 
ful everywhere to serve from the ranks upwards. To limit 
oneself to a handicraft is the best. For the narrowest heads 
it is always a craft ; for the better ones an art ; and the best, 
when he does one thing, does everything — or, to be less para- 
doxical, in the one thing, which he does rightly, he beholds 
the semblance of everything that is rightly done.^^ 

All life, all activity, all art must be preceded by handi- 
work, that can only be acquired in a limited sphere. A 
correct knowledge and practice give a higher culture than 
half-knowledge in hundredfold.^^ 

From the Useful, through the True, to the Beautiful.^® 

Eegarding Goethe's relation to the most funda- 
mental element, religion, the evidence is as diverse 
as it is in respect to concerns less serious. Contra- 
dictories abound. He sympathized with the devout 
Moravians, and condemned and despised priest and 
priesthood. At once he commended Voltaire and 
had a large heart for the pietist. There is reason 
for calling him a sceptic, and there is evidence that 
he was a believer in those fundamental concepts 
regarding ultimate being and destiny, which belong 
to most thoughtful and reverent souls. To call him 
a pantheist would be a not unjust interpretation. 

But whatever his personal belief may have been, 

"lUd., pp. 32-33. 
^Ibid., p. 146. 
^Ibid., p. 61. 



ACCOEDING TO GOETHE 267 

it is clear that Goethe does believe in the value of 
religion in education. 

The religion which rests on reverence for that which is 
above us, we call the ethnical one ; it is the religion of nations, 
and the first happy redemption from a base fear ; all so-called 
heathen religions are of this kind, let them have what names 
they will. The second religion, which is founded on that 
reverence which we have for what is like ourselves, we call 
the Philosophic; for the philosopher, who places himself in 
the middle, must draw downward to himself all that is 
higher, and upward to himself all that is lower, and only in 
this central position does he deserve the name of sage. Now, 
whilst he penetrates his relations to his fellows, and there- 
fore to the whole of humanity, and his relations to all other 
earthly surroundings, necessary or accidental, in the cosmical 
sense he only lives in the truth. But we must now speak of 
the third religion, based on reverence for that which is below 
us; we call it the Christian one, because this disposition of 
mind is chiefly revealed in it ; it is the last one which human- 
ity could and was bound to attain. Yet what was not de- 
manded for it? not merely to leave earth below, and claim a 
higher origin, but to recognize as divine even humility and 
poverty, scorn and contempt, shame and misery, suffering 
and death; nay, to revere and make lovable even sin and 
crime, not as hindrances but as furtherances of holiness ! Of 
this there are indeed found traces throughout all time ; but a 
track is not a goal, and this having once been reached, hu- 
manity cannot turn backwards; and it may be maintained, 
that the Christian religion . . . having once been divinely 
embodied, cannot again be dissolved.^* 

»7bid., pp. 155, 156. 



268 EDUCATION 

Two obligations, moreover, we have most strictly taken 
upon us : to hold in honour every form of the worship of God ; 
for they are all more or less comprised in the Creed ; secondly, 
to allow all forms of government equally to hold good, since 
they all demand and promote a systematic activity — to em- 
ploy ourselves in each, wherever and however long it may 
be, according to its will and pleasure. In conclusion, we hold 
it a duty to practise good morals, without pedantry and 
stringency; even as reverence for ourselves demands, which 
springs from the three reverences which we profess ; all of us 
having the good fortune, some from youth up, to be initiated 
in this higher universal wisdom.^^ 

But below and above religion, Goethe holds to 
the value of that composite creation and creator 
which we denominate character. 

Character, that is, the complex of the primal human im- 
pulses, of self-preservation, self-respect, etc., is that from 
which the forming of the other spiritual powers departs and 
upon which also it rests.^^ 

All education, like all life, is to be conducted 
under at least three categories. They are freedom, 
patience, idealism. 

**0 needless strictness of morality," exclaimed he, ''while 
Nature in her own kindly manner trains us to all that we 
require to be ! O strange demands of civil society, which first 
perplexes and misleads us, then asks of us more than Nature 

" Ibid., pp. 366-367. 

Weimar, 1806, etc., Vol. I., p. 470. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 269 

herself ! Woe to every sort of culture which destroys the most 
effectual means of all true culture, and directs us to the end, 
instead of rendering us happy on the way. ' ' ^^ 

Persevere in direct observance of the day's duty, and 
thereby test the purity of your heart, and the safety of your 
soul. If thus in unoccupied hours you aspire, and find op- 
portunity to elevate yourself, you will so gain a right attitude 
towards the sublime, to which we must in every way rever- 
ently surrender ourselves, regard every occurrence with ven- 
eration, and acknowledge therein a higher guidance.^* 

Yes, he has the noble searching and striving for the Bet- 
ter, whereby we of ourselves produce the Good which we 
suppose we find. How often have I blamed thee, not in 
silence, for treating this or that person, for acting in this 
or that case, otherwise than I should have done! and yet 
in general the issue showed that thou wert right. ''When 
we take people," thou wouldst say, "merely as they are, we 
make them worse ; when we treat them as if they were what 
they should be, we improve them as far as they can be 
improved. ' ' ^^ 

A great contemporary of Goethe, and an out- 
standing educationist, was Rousseau. It is easy 
to draw certain parallels and certain contrasts be- 
tween the two. Goethe's works are a revelation of 
the future, those of the sage of Geneva a creed of 
the eighteenth century. Goethe is not the son of 
a new culture, like Rousseau, but its creator. In 

*»Wilhelm Meister's ''Lehrjahre," etc., Vol. II., p. 82. 
"Wilhelm Meister's '' Wander jahre," etc., p. 403. 
"Wilhelm Meister's ''Lehrjahre,'' etc.. Vol. II., p. 111. 



270 EDUCATION 

personality especially they are very diverse. In 
the one we have feminine sensibility in perception 
and feeling; in the other the self-conscious pre- 
cision of a self-sufficient man. In the one are found 
subjective, in the other objective, thoughts. Eous- 
seau, arrogant, sets himself against the influence 
of the world about him; Goethe, scientifically 
trained, uses scientific methods and the greatest 
objectivity in his examination of life. In the one 
we have a unique and mighty striving for inde- 
pendence, the yearning for freedom from every 
fetter; in the other a real respect for the histori- 
cally established regulations and institutions of 
state and church. Also in religion are they oppo- 
sites. To the theism of the Frenchman stands op- 
posed the pantheism of the German. But in the 
main idea of education, in what Rousseau calls the 
Return to Nature, they join hands. For Goethe 
also, nature is the great and eternal teacher, which 
alone gives us the right measuring rule for man- 
kind. Both see the pettiness of human culture and 
both value the virtues of simplicity and truth. 
Social conditions are condemned by Goethe no 
less than by Rousseau. Both learned to know the 
conflict of nature and moral law, both stand for the 
principle of the renunciation of personality at 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 271 

times, and both fight together for a noble exist- 
ence, with a worthy culture as the normal condition 
of all. Both hold the highest view of mankind, 
each seeks, according to his ability, to bring man 
back to original nature, and both begin with the 
child. So one becomes the defender of the rights of 
children, according as the other reveals them. 
Both are active in a practical way as educators, and 
both exchange their educational ideas with women. 
Both lack the historical point of view. In Rous- 
seau's view ^^ Robinson Crusoe" comprises the 
most admirable dissertation on the natural educa- 
tion, while Goethe turns to the ^^ Chronicle of 
Tschudis" for a picture of a worthy type of man. 
In the same manner each tries to illustrate in a 
definite individual the idea of education in which 
they believe. In Wilhelm Meister, as in Emil, poet 
and philosopher dress their theories in the colors 
of life. The method in both is fresh and living. 
In both exists the danger that the example may be 
taken for the thing itself and the single case con- 
fused with the general rule. But let it be remem- 
bered that while Goethe planned to write a philo- 
sophical compendium for teachers' seminaries, 
Rousseau declares that the child should be the ob- 
ject of the teacher's most ardent studies; so that, 



272 EDUCATION 

though his whole method must be interpreted as 
phantastic and partially false, one can neverthe- 
less always draw useful inferences from his obser- 
vations.^^ 

This interpretation of the educational beliefs of 
one of the greatest of men I shall close with a gen- 
eral selection — ^which might be vastly enlarged — 
from his writings. These selections do represent 
certain practical axioms. They are pregnant, too, 
with great meanings. 

We retain of our studies, in the end, only that which we 
apply practically. 

There is in our universities, a pursuit of too many things, 
and of too much that is useless. The individual teachers teach 
their subjects too extensively, much beyond the needs of 
their hearers. Formerly chemistry and botany were pre- 
sented as belonging to pharmacology and they gave the 
medical student enough to do, but now chemistry and botany 
have become distinct, limitless sciences, each of which makes 
claim upon a whole lifetime. 

He who is wise, will reject all diverting demands on him- 
self and limit himself to one subject and become proficient 
in that. 

There are some excellent persons who can do nothing off- 
hand, perfunctorily, but whose natures demand that in every 
case they penetrate in quiet to deep perception of the subject 
in hand. Such persons often make us impatient, because 

*See Adolph Langguth's ''Goethe's Padagogik," p. 312 ff. 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 273 

one seldom obtains from them what one immediately desires, 
and yet in this way, the highest things are achieved. 

Character does not take the place of knowledge, but sup- 
plies it. 

Children are the best preceptors because they are all dis- 
posed to lend to each other an attentive ear, and because they 
speak to each other in a language more intelligible than 
ours. 

Avoid dividing your energies. Hold your powers together. 
Had I been so wise thirty years ago (December 3, 1824), I 
should have done far different things. What time did I not 
waste ! I cannot think back without vexation to those under- 
takings in which the world misused us, and which were 
entirely without result for us. 

All depends on your building up a capital for yourself 
which will never give out. This you will attain in the studies 
you have begun in the English language and literature. The 
old languages for the most part, you nursed in youth, there- 
fore seek a basis in the literature of so able a nation as the 
English. Our own literature is in the largest measure to 
come from theirs. Our novels, . . . whence do we have 
them, if not from Goldsmith, Fielding and Shakespeare, 
and even to-day, where will you find in Germany three heroes 
in literature who might be placed beside Byron, Moore and 
Walter Scott? Therefore, ground yourself firmly in Eng- 
lish. Hold your powers together, to some excelling purpose, 
and let all go that has no result for you and is not conform- 
able to you. 

As for the Greek, Latin, Italian and Spanish languages, it 
is possible for us to read the finest works of these countries in 
such good German translations that we have no grounds ex- 
cept for very special reasons to spend much time on the labori- 



274 EDUCATION 

ous learning on these languages. It is of the German nature 
to honor everything foreign in its own kind, and to conform, 
to its peculiarities. It is not to he denied that in general 
one can do a great deal with a good translation. Frederick 
the Great knew no Latin, but he read his Cicero in a French 
translation just as well as we in the original. 

The universal development of human powers is desirable 
and most excellent, but man is not born for it. Each one 
must form himself as a distinct being, yet seek to attain a 
conception of what all, together, are. 

One ought to beware of setting the frontiers of his cultiva- 
tion too far. 

Fix upon reality and seek to express it. That is what the 
ancients did. 

Even though the world as a whole progresses, youth must 
always begin again at the beginning, and live through the 
epochs of culture, as an individual. 

Revere something that is above us, for in revering it, we 
lift ourselves to it, and manifest through our recognition of 
it, that we bear this higher thing within ourselves and are 
worthy of being its peers. 

I have every respect for the categorical imperative. I 
know how much good may issue from it. But, we must not 
go too far with it, or this idea of the freedom of idea will lead 
to no good. 

National literature has no great meaning now (1827). The 
epoch of world literature has come, and each must labor to 
hasten this epoch. . . . We must not think it is Chinese litera- 
ture, or Servian, or Calderon, or the Nibelungen, or rather in 
our need of some exemplary thing, we must always go back 
again to the ancient Greeks, in whose works the beauty of man 



ACCOKDING TO GOETHE 275 

is represented. All else we must regard as merely historical, 
and make the good in it, so far as may be, ours. 

The truly excellent is distinguished by this, that it belongs 
to all mankind. 

It remains always a heart-lifting sensation to win from 
the impenetrable a few illumined spaces. 

If lithesome youth may legitimately form a wish, it were 
surely this, to discern in every performance, what is praise- 
worthy, good, fair, aspiring, in a word, the ideal, and even 
in what is not difficult, to discern the universal type and ex- 
emplar of man. 

Mathematicians are foolish people, and so far from pos- 
sessing even a notion of the main point, that one has to be 
indulgent to their conceit. ... I have become more and more 
conscious of the fact, which I had quietly recognized long ago, 
that the training given to the mind by mathematicians is 
extremely one-sided and limited. Voltaire even ventures to 
say somewhere: *'J'ai tou jours remarque que la Geometric 
laisse I'esprit ou elle le trouve.'* Franklin also has a peculiar 
aversion to mathematicians, and expresses this plainly and 
clearly in reference to social intercourse, when he speaks of 
their spirit of littleness and contradictioin, as being in- 
tolerable. 

How did moral feeling come into the world ? Through God 
himself, like every other good. 

We ought to study not our contemporaries and fellow 
aspirants, but great men of the past, whose works have held 
for centuries an equal worth and an equal estimation. A 
really highly gifted person will in any case feel the need 
of this within himself, and just this need of communion with 
great predecessors is the sign of a higher tendency. 

The spirit of the real is the truly ideal. 



276 EDUCATION 

I am sure that many a dialectically sick spirit, might find 
in the study of nature, a beneficent feeling. 

It were well to think in, as well as to read or write, a 
foreign language. 

That divine illumination whereby the extraordinary comes 
to be, we shall always find in league with youth and pro- 
ductivity. 

For what is genius other than that productive power 
whereby deeds arise which may be shown before God and 
nature, and which even therefore have consequences and are 
permanent ? 

It is not enough to be gifted; it takes more than that to 
be sagacious; one must be in great relationships, and have 
a chance to look at the cards of the playing figures of the 
time, and himself play with them for gain and loss. 

The good world does not know what it costs in time and 
in pains to learn to read and to profit from one's reading: 
I have put into it eighty years. 

The more one has deepened his own study of any subject 
whatever, the more he is in a position to teach well its ele- 
ments. 

The secret [with persons] lies not in birth or wealth; but it 
lies in this, that they have the courage to be what nature has 
made them. There is about them nothing perverted or warped, 
there are in them no incompleteness and obliquities ; but, how- 
ever they are, they are always thoroughly complete beings. 

Goethe illustrates, in both his character and 
his writings, the two fundamental elements of 
education, self -culture and comprehensiveness of 
learning. He aimed at the enlargement and en- 



ACCORDING TO GOETHE 277 

richment of his own being and also at the posses- 
sion of universal knowledge. Above most did he 
succeed in gaining these ends. In his moral rela- 
tions his culture was selfish, but in the intellectual 
elements it was ministered unto by the sciences, the 
literatures and the philosophies of all races and of 
both worlds, ancient and modern. His mind was a 
vast reserv^oir which received streams of influence 
from many sources, and which, in turn, sent forth 
streams to make glad the heart of men. His mind 
was as a great lens which receives the light, which 
seems to be vitally eager for more light, and which 
sheds forth that light unto measureless distances. 
He was among the greatest of the great. 

Education indeed is designed to give enlarge- 
ment and enrichment to the individual and to the 
race. It recognizes that the center of its service is 
personality, but, despite the natural and inevitable 
charge of selfishness, it also seeks to know all that 
can be known. Its horizon is limited only by its 
own power of seeing. Under this limitation, how- 
ever, a sense of over-yonderness rules and inspires. 
The infinite touches and embraces the finite. 

Education, therefore, is as narrow as the indi- 
vidual. Education also is as broad as nature, as 
humanity and as human appreciation of divinity. 



278 EDUCATION 

In one relation it stands pre-eminently for power 
and in the other for sympathy. Through power 
and sympathy, it fulfills apparently the supreme 
purposes of life and of all being. 



IX 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

THE preceding chapters are devoted to an 
interpretation of the gospel of education as 
set forth by eight human and humanistic masters. 
Six of the eight belong to a single race and to the 
Mid- Victorian age. By the influence of this age, 
because of distance in both space and time, Goethe, 
the last of the eight, was untouched. But Emerson, 
the first of the number, was deeply filled by its 
spirit. The period in which these men lived and 
wrought was a time of rationalism. It was be- 
lieved that the intellect of man was the chief tool 
for carving out a perfect civilization. Truth was 
to be known. It was to be translated into thought. 
Thought was to be confirmed into belief, belief 
was to be transmuted into action, and action was 
to be solidified into character, both individual and 
communal. *^ We needs must love the highest when 
we see it," sang Tennyson. 

Each of these masters, including Emerson and 
Goethe, sympathetic with and eager to serve his 

279 



280 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

age, interpreted education as rational in its nature, 
forces and conditions. Education was, as has been 
made evident in the preceding chapters, at least 
rational. Education was also something other and 
possibly higher than rational. But to them each it 
was first a rational process. 

For to Newman even, the ecclesiastic, the theo- 
logian, education had to do with reason, to Mill it 
spelled reasoning, and to Emerson it meant truth, 
both as a creative cause, as a process and as a re- 
sult. Reason gains knowledge, it was held, by im- 
mediate perception. It builds up its own world out 
of the bricks of experience and of observation. In 
accordance with a plan which has been impressed 
upon it from the beginning, it creates principles, it 
accumulates facts, it accentuates relations, it makes 
inferences, it points out duties. It analyzes, syn- 
thesizes, draws inductions and deductions, philoso- 
phizes, even geometrizes as says Plato of the 
Divine Being. The use of reason may be either 
good or ill, false or true, logical or illogical, but it 
does use itself. Truth is its food, truth the atmos- 
phere in which it moves, truth the ground on which 
it stands. Its worthy use is promoted by educa- 
tion, and the more thorough and profound the 
education, the more complete is the evidence that 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 281 

its use is worthy. The place given to the reason in 
the education of these masters was the extension 
and the elaboration of the doctrine of John Locke 
and of the light-bearers of the French Revolution. 
Yet, although education is intellectual and ra- 
tional, it is still more essential that it be interpreted 
and applied as moral. In an age rational, the 
emphasis is put on a side of education other than 
rational. To educate the feelings is, in the judg- 
ment of Matthew Arnold — a school master and the 
son of a school master — quite as important as the 
elevation of the intellect, and the lifting of both is 
the comprehensive aim and work of the whole edu- 
cational service. Character, says Goethe, is the 
sum of the primal human impulses of self-pres- 
ervation and of self-respect ; from it other spiritual 
powers take their origin, and on it they rest. The 
intellect enriches the feelings, the feelings quicken 
the intellect, and both move on, and are moved by, 
the will. If the heart without the intellect be blind 
and quite as sure to work destruction as edification, 
the intellect without the heart is dumb and dead. 
The affections, declares the virile prophet of 
Cheyne Row, have the supreme place in teaching, 
and sincerity and honesty are the lasting worths of 
education. John Ruskin confesses that one of the 



282 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

great lacks in his own education was the lack of the 
element of love. ^^The intellect sees by moral 
obedience/' declares Emerson. ^'Pure intellect is 
the pure devil when you have got oH all the marks 
of Mephistopheles. ' ' Real moral instruction in the 
public schools, says Mill, would do more than all 
else in attaining the highest aims. Indeed, the tes- 
timony of Solomon is still sound, that the moral 
affections and appreciations lead to, as well as 
arise from, intellectual valuations, and that the 
wisdom of the heart is not to be separated from 
the wisdom of the mind. 

In this composite interpretation of education, 
religion assumes as many types, both formal and 
informal, as are the races of men. But of any type, 
whether as a conscious relation to the divine or as 
simple reverence, it takes its place as among the 
most potent of all forces. For these educationists, 
the type is very general. It is devoid of creeds and 
of articles of specific faith. Its altar is as broad as 
the earth, its cathedral as wide-reaching as the 
sky, its incense of worship nothing less than the 
twilight of the rising or setting sun. Reverence is 
the one religious virtue and grace of fundamental 
significance. In education should abide, and from 
education should come forth, an infallible religion. 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 283 

a religion which is an unconquerable faith, an un- 
quenchable hope and an abiding charity. To Glad- 
stone religion as a force in education is direct, com- 
pact, forcible. ^ ' A great Christian, ' ' as Lord Salis- 
bury called him after his death, he holds the Chris- 
tian faith, historically and dogmatically inter- 
preted, to be an essential and necessary part of 
university education. To his children and to the 
nation, he declares that he prefers to see Oxford 
leveled to the ground, rather than see loose notions 
of the truth and of the inspiration of the Bible 
prevail. To his family he gives direct counsel 
respecting nurture in religion and in the church. 
To Newman, likewise, religion represents one of 
the most formative of all educative forces. The 
new birth of the heart produces a new birth of the 
intellect, and the new direction, under the spiritual 
quickening of the will, adds stimuli to both intel- 
lect and heart. What is called conversion in the 
Christian church has a value to some personalities 
equivalent to that of a liberal education as weighed 
in academic scales. As an exponent and force in 
the Christian religion, the Bible receives emphatic 
commendation from Ruskin. Again and again in 
strongest terms he acknowledges the debt which he 
owes to it. The English of its King James ' version, 



284 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

as well as the exaltation of its moral precepts and 
religious truths, cause it to be regarded as one of 
the most potent of all educative instruments. 

Yet the question recurs again and again in these 
pages, as it is ever recurring in life itself, how can 
religion be taught? Carlyle specifically considers 
the question and is content with passing it on to 
those ^^ whose duty it is," he declares, *Ho teach re- 
ligion." ^' Those entrusted with this duty will find 
their own way," he says. Of course theology, 
which is theory, can be taught, but religion, which 
represents life, cannot be taught any more than 
life can be taught, though helps for understanding 
its nature, for apprehending its truths, for appre- 
ciating its relationships, for doing its duties, may 
be taught. 

It is also not a little significant that among 
our masters there is found a general agreement 
in the belief that education should be fitted into 
the character and influence of the individual. It 
should be made personal. The peril is that educa- 
tion will be a mold into which the melted metal of 
common humanity will be flung and from which 
the people shall come out bearing identical forms 
and a similar likeness. Such is the peril, declares 
Mill, existing especially in public education. The 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 285 

danger is less menacing in education based more 
directly on the voluntary principle. Differences in 
nature begin with birth and are continued and 
deepened with the unfolding and development of 
character. These differences are to be respected. 
That knowledge which is most worth acquiring and 
having, that training which is most worth securing 
and using, is to be sought after. Life is short. The 
stores to be accumulated are immense, the work to 
be done is hard and great. Our faculties are lim- 
ited and the results which, it is hoped, they may 
win are beyond their abilities. The college student 
who consoles himself with Plato would in trigo- 
nometry find only the unrational and the irritating. 
All education is to have respect unto the student. 
He is the subject to be educated, not the victim 
waiting for the pedagogic altar. Yet, though edu- 
cation is ever to be individualistic, it does possess 
certain great common underlying, over-arching 
elements. It is to create and to promote lucidity, 
to nourish the flexibility of the mind, to give free- 
dom from prejudice, to foster the good without the 
evil of passion, and to give a sense of humanity in 
every person. At what point in the process indi- 
vidualism becomes narrowness, and breadth and 
liberality vagueness, is the critical problem — ^a 



286 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

problem ever before us, ever seeking and never 
finding a wholly satisfactory solution. 

This educational movement in the individual and 
the community is carried forward by certain great 
tools or instruments or forces. They form what 
are called the studies or the content of studies or, 
in awkward term, the curriculum. They are sup- 
posed to represent what we denominate the truth, 
and truth is presumed to be, not only the mother of 
freedom, but also the creator of personal power. 
Diverse are the credits given to these diverse agen- 
cies. Carlyle commends the study of history as the 
most profitable, being the one ''articulate connec- 
tion" which the past can have with the present. It 
is a letter of instruction given by the older genera- 
tions to the new. It is good and profitable to know 
what the family of man has done. But for those 
extremes of subjects, the sciences and logic, he has 
characteristic contempt. Toward Latin and Greek, 
Carlyle 's friend and correspondent, Emerson, has 
much the same feeling which Carlyle himself has 
toward chemistry and logic. The ancient classics 
to him are as dead and as dry as the autunmal 
leaves. The antagonist of the ancient literatures 
as a part of the education of the American youth 
finds in the man of Concord an associate as virile 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 287 

as he can desire. But the same literatures and 
languages as given to English youth do discover 
in Emerson a stout defender. For these studies 
offered at Eton, at Winchester and at Oxford 
help to create ^Hhose masters of the world who 
combine the highest energy in affairs with su- 
preme culture." For the same great subjects and 
forces, masters as diverse as Goethe and Glad- 
stone, as Arnold and Newman, cast their votes 
as disciplines and as forms of culture. Though 
knowing Latin better than he knew Greek, Goethe 
yet held that Plato and Aristotle with the Bible 
represent the greatest forces in civilization. To 
Gladstone, the tradition which they represent and 
embody is most important and significant. It does 
hold, with the Christian religion, European prog- 
ress and civilization. To be a part of this civi- 
lization is a worthy aim and stands for a first- 
rate achievement. To be remote from it is to be 
outside the pale of the greatest and of the best. To 
Newman the ancient classics are a form of gram- 
mar, the knowledge of which stands for the most 
general and effective of all disciplines. To Matthew 
Arnold the classics give to us an ancient world, an 
acquaintance with which aids us in knowing our- 
selves and our own modern world. Greek inspires 



288 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

the modern man with an appreciation of beauty, 
and Latin quickens in him the worth of character. 
Other studies, such as the modern languages, 
sciences, metaphysics, do of course have their 
place, but to most men their place is not so large or 
so alluring as that belonging to what some are still 
pleased to call the fundamental linguistic disci- 
plines. Whoever wishes to get the most adequate 
interpretation of such studies as a means and 
method of education does not fail to turn to and 
to linger long among the pages of Mill's St. An- 
drews Address. The address is a quarry where- 
in the mathematician will find his argument for 
the worth of mathematics stated with the utmost 
cogency, where the classicist will find his plea urged 
with the greatest convincingness, where the logi- 
cian will meet with the presentation of the worth 
of his subject, both induction and deduction, with 
an eloquence most quickening, where the attorney 
for modern practical subjects will discover reasons 
for his quest, of apt value and of fundamental per- 
suasiveness. 

In fact, in and beyond all particular studies, it 
is to be borne in mind that the scholar's functions 
are at once broad, deep, high. They take on cubical 
relations. They are conceived with the categories 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 289 

of freedom, patience and idealism. They are 
human, as well as humanistic. They cover all life. 
They are touched with a sense of the infinities and 
immensities and the eternities. They stand at once 
for inspiration and for routine. They mean in- 
spiration and also drill. They belong to the still 
air of delightful leisure and also to the strain of 
work and the care of toil. Without haste and 
without rest, the scholar's and the student's service 
is to be performed, without the current desire of 
quick returns and with a will that it shall be as 
effective in securing results as it is of lasting and 
surpassing significance for humanity. These re- 
sults, the results of the scholar's and the student's 
quest, are as manifold and diverse as are the condi- 
tions of humanity and as are the forces and ele- 
ments of material nature. The scholar is to be 
happy, and happiness, with Mill, is the standard 
for measuring the value of his achievements. Joy 
is to clothe him as a garment. At the fountains 
of rich and tender consolations he drinks when 
weary and depressed, and inspirations and quick- 
enings are his as he plods along life 's long and toil- 
some way. Contentment is his mood. For, if he is 
unable to make the numerator of life's fraction 
large by his positive achievements, he can secure 



290 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

the same result by making the denominator of the 
same fraction of his desires small. He has vision 
and should not lack force, though his reach is more 
than his grasp. Like Browning's Grammarian, he 
is patient of time. Though he is eager to be useful 
to his own age, he knows he does live in the forever. 
Neither is courage lacking to him if he will but look 
from his lexicon to the stars. He is the re-creator, 
adding an eighth day to the pristine week. From 
the chaos which often surrounds him, he seeks to 
bring forth a cosmos. If in his service he seeks 
and finds a livelihood, he does not allow his finding 
to do away with his life. If he knows the scholar's 
mood is one of solitude, he is still a good companion 
and comrade along the way. If he is faithful to his 
task, a worthy servant of his imperative duty, he 
remembers that to be is more important than to do. 
If he is self-respecting, as he ought to be, his soul 
is full of humility. For he has a sense of relations, 
and he is never neglectful of either graciousness of 
character nor of the graces of conduct. If he is a 
learner, he is also a teacher and he bears in mind 
the truth that the teacher is more to the student 
than the subject he professes or the precepts which 
he conveys. If he seeks to know the truth thor- 
oughly, he also tries to convey it — a harder task — 



SUMMAEY AND CONCLUSIONS 291 

truthfully. If he recognizes the august categorical 
imperative for himself, yet he is merciful to the re- 
bellious souls to whom obedience is not life's first 
commandment. He has clearness of thought with- 
out coldness, affection without softness, strength 
without harshness, a giant's vigor without a giant's 
cruelty, a sense of beauty without effusiveness, in- 
dividuality without eccentricity, and a great sym- 
pathy without commonplaceness. He is wise with- 
out being pedantic, sincere without pride or van- 
ity, comprehensive without neglecting the detail, 
guided and inspired by high-reaching and deep- 
lying principle without neglecting the nearest 
duty, patient without sluggishness or slackness, 
considerate in both feeling and mind, magnanimous 
with an instinct for freedom but recognizing the 
divine and human laws, never allowing courtesy to 
hide the reality of things, nor the reality of things 
underlying to be a substitute for courtesy. Social 
and yet reverent, controlling self and therefore 
controlling and persuasive of others, an opportun- 
ist, yet with an eye and an ear to the universal 
and the eternal, tolerant toward others, but severe 
toward himself, having a life and character filled 
with life's great unities and yet adjusting himself 
to daily needs and hourly duties, inspired by life's 



292 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

ideals, yet taking hold with firm grip of life's 
present real problems: such is the educated man. 
Such, too, are some of the results which the in- 
terpretation of these modern prophets gives of the 
worth of education and of the worth of the edu- 
cator. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Accuracy in education, 29ff., 
84ff., 181. 

Aristotle, reference to, 185, 260. 

Arnold, Matthew, education ac- 
cording to, 196-220. 

Art and scholarship, lOOff. 

Bain, quotation from, 132. 
Barnard, James M., letter to, 

176-177. 
Bible, the, in education, 87, 98ff., 

209. 
value of, 260. 
Books, value of, 46ff., 94ff. 
Brougham, Lord, reference to, 

194. 
Browning, reference to, 290. 
Buffon, reference to, 253. 
Burke, reference to, 41, 72. 
Burne-Jones, reference to, 130. 
Butler, Bishop, reference to, 182. 

Cabot, J. E., quotation from, 3-4. 
Cambridge, reference to, 193, 

244. 
Carlyle, education according to, 
38-73. 

intellect according to, 40ff. 

man according to, 39fif. 
Character, 198. 

and intellect, 23fe. 

interpretation of, 23ff. 



Classics, value of, 22ff., 156ff., 
183ff., 203ff., 259. 

College, value of, 36ff. 

Contentment a result of educa- 
tion, 81. 

Cramming, 216-217. 

Cultivation a result of educa- 
tion, 83-84. 

Culture, 199. 

Dartmouth College, reference to, 
10. 

Darwin, reference to, 116. 

Desires, education to be ad- 
dressed to, 79. 

Discipline in education, 144ff. 

Drawing, value of, in education, 
118. 

Drill and inspiration, 27ff. 

Edinburgh, University of, refer- 
ence to, 42, 194. 
Education bill of 1870, reference 

to, 75. 
Education, categories of, 268. 
definition of, 198, 256, 262. 
methods in, 211. 
to be made personal, 284ff. 
Emerson, education according 
to, 1-37. 
personal education of, 2-4. 



293 



294 



INDEX 



English people, lack of interest 
of, in education, 75. 
youth to know what? 93ff. 

Environment, value of, in educa- 
tion, 118. 

Esthetics, value of study of, 
160ff. 

Eton, reference to, 203-204. 

Examinations, 192-193, 216. 

Executive work, value of, 165ff. 

Fawcett, Henry, quotation from, 

156. 
Feelings, place of, in education, 

163. 
Fichte, reference to, 253. 
Fox, W. J., letter to, 169. 
Frankfort, reference to, 252. 
Frederick the Great, reference 

to, 52, 61, 64, 71. 
Freedom in education, 32. 

Gentleman, interpretation of, 

239ff. 
Germany, reference to, 206. 

schools of, reference to, 218. 
Gibbon, reference to, 253. 
Gladstone, education according 
to, 179-195. 
Helen, letter to, 188-189. 
W. H., letter to, 181ff. 
Goethe, education according to, 
251-278. 
reference to, 44, 58ff. 
Greece, literature of, 158. 

Hallam, A. H., reference to, 180. 
Hamilton, reference to, 159. 



Happiness, standard in educa- 
tion, 171ff. 

Harrison, Frederic, reference 
to, 197. 

Harvard College, reference to, 
2ff. 

Heredity, value of, in education, 
79ff. 

History, value of, 66&. 

Horace, reference to, 205. 

Humboldt, von, William, refer- 
ence to, 75. 

Huxley, reference to, 152. 

Imagination in education, 32flf. 
Inspiration and drill, 27ff. 
Intellect according to Carlyle, 
40ff. 

and character, 23ff. 

and consolation, 33. 

and freedom, 32. 

and imagination, 32ff. 

discipline of, 153. 

Johnson, S., reference to, 253. 

Kant, reference to, 253. 
Kingsley, Charles, reference to, 
126. 

Lawrence, Sir Henry, reference 

to, 74. 
Liberal education, nature of, 

227ff., 238. 
Literature, English, value of, in 

education, 117. 
Livelihood and education, 91. 
Locke, reference to, 281. 



INDEX 



295 



Logic and science, 66. 
in education, 141ff. 
value of, 115, 153ff. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, refer- 
ence to, 214. 

Man according to Carlyle, 39ff. 

Manchester, reference to, 192. 

Mathematics, value of study of, 
159. 

Mill, James, reference to, 132. 

Mill, John Stuart, education ac- 
cording to, 131-178. 
personal education of, 135ff. 

Milton, reference to, 4. 

Morals in education, 102ff., 
168fe. 

Moravians, reference to, 266. 

Morley, John, quotation from, 
133, 181-182, 222. 

Newman, education according 

to, 221-251. 
Norton, C. E., reference to, 134. 

Occupation, education a prepa- 
ration for, 82-83. 

Oxford, reference to, 76, 98, 180, 
193-194, 244. 

Peel, Sir Robert, reference to, 

180, 195. 
Pericles, reference to, 203. 
Philistinism, definition of, 200. 
Physiology, value of study of, 

159. 
Plato, reference to, 155, 201, 

260, 280. 



Poetry, value of, 161. 

Political economy, value of 

study of, 160. 
Power, a result of education, 85. 
Practical, the, in education, 

105ff. 
Proportion in education, 201. 
Psychology, value of study of, 

159. 
Pusey, quotation from, 186-187. 

Reason, nature of, 223ff. 
Religion, Goethe's opinion of, 

266ff. 
in education, 18-19, 57ff., 98ff., 

168ff., 186fe., 242fie. 
Rousseau, reference to, 253, 

269ff. 
Ruskin, education according to, 

74-130. 
personal education of, 123ff. 
Ruskin College, reference to, 

110. 

St. Andrews address, Mill's, 

149ff. 
Salisbury, Lord, quotation from, 

283. 
Scholar, functions of, 7-9. 
solitude of, 28ff. 
subject of, and force in, edu- 
cation, 9-11. 
to have resources, 13ff. 
Scholarship and art, 109ff. 
Science and logic, 66. 
value of study of, 158ff., 260. 
versus classics, 19-21. 
worthlessness of, 116. 



296 



INDEX 



Sincerity the result of educa- 
tion, 51ff. 

Social education, 164ff., 248. 

Solitude the duty of the scholar, 
28ff. 

Solomon, reference to, 43, 282. 

Spencer, Herbert, quotation 
from, 131-132, 200. 

Sterling, John, reference to, 
69-70. 

Student educates student, 17-18, 
68ff. 
personality of, 15-16. 

Talk, worth and worthlessness 

of, 48£f. 
Teacher, methods of, 65. 
training of, 215. 
value of personality of, 12ff., 

62ff. 
Teaching, value of, 62ff. 
Tennyson, quotation from, 279. 
Thinking, value of, in education, 

50, 148. 
Time in education, 30ff. 
Titian, reference to, 222. 
Turner, reference to, 129. 



Types, different, in education, 
150ff. 

United States, reference to, 176, 

201-202. 
Universities, a collection of 
books, 48. 
education in, 234ff. 
worthlessness of, 45ff. 

Vocation, guidance in choice of, 

107ff. 
Voltaire, reference to, 222, 266. 

Ward, reference to, 243. 
Webster, Daniel, reference to, 

25. 
Wisdom, nature of, 41ff. 
Wolf, rule for teaching, 211. 
Women, education of, 112ff. 
Wordsworth, reference to, 161. 
Work, value of, 54ff., 190. 
Workingman, education of, 

llOff. 
World educates the scholar, 11- 

12. 
Writing in education, 143ff. 



mkh 






'mm 
[mm 



ihSm.'^"^ ^^ CONGRESS 



022 166 067 5 






l:iii?|Sffi 















